This song has been on my heart for awhile.  I first mentioned it on my blog in November 2009 and it is one that has played many, many times on my iPod.  The words and message are so powerful – sharing some wording from Psalms 23 (one of my top 3 sections of the Word) and a reminder that God never leaves me.  I can choose to walk away but He is still there, He is still waiting with arms wide open.  I hope you enjoy.

As you surely know by now, it is baseball season and if you missed the play made by Elvis Andrus last night, pull up texasrangers.com and look for the highlights.  I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E.  I also heard last night that Texas has the 2nd youngest team in MLB.  My hopes of a 162-0 run were dashed last night but 161-1 isn’t all bad either.

This will probably be it for the week.  Have a great weekend and remember, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for God is with me.”  Whatever your valley, whatever your fear, whatever is out there to bring you down, God is with you and He is a king who will meet you not only at the throne, but at the depths of despair.  I praise God for meeting me at the lowest lows and giving me a glimpse of the highest highs.

Grace and peace to you.
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President Obama throws like a girl. 
The Duke/Butler game didn’t exactly go off like I imagined.  Butler gets 2 thumbs up from me.
I wonder if Jukes thought he would make a difference in the game before it started?
People wear some some weird stuff to a baseball game.
I wonder if anyone’s double guessing their decision to give Feldman a big extension?
Vladamir got some big cheers from the crowd.
I wonder what Josh Hamilton tells an ump when he disagrees with a 3rd strike call?  I don’t think it was a Philippians 4:8 moment for Josh. 
I thought it was a bad call too.
Every Rangers home opener should be a bottom of the 9th, come from behind victory.  Wow!
There sure is a lot of roadwork going on to have such bad roads.  I don’t get it.
The double-amputee parachutist was great.  We could see the guy jump from a helicopter and then catch the 20mph winds blowing in.  I really thought he might hit the Jumbotron for a minute but it appears he was a professional who knew exactly what he was doing. 
Roger Staubach can still throw a ball.  Way to go Roger!
Nolan Ryan looks funny in a suit to me.  The video clip of him punching Robin Ventura still gets a lot of cheers but I’m guessing Nolan would be happy if they quit showing it.
I saw some people from Decatur one section to my left.
I saw a good friend from college two rows in front of me.
I saw a guy I knew when I lived in Ft. Worth one section to my right.
My neighbor when I was a kid who went on to become Ms. Texas several years ago was playing the Cotton Eyed Joe on her fiddle two sections to my right.
I was tempted to walk every section and see if I knew someone. 
The guy that went with me knew 2 or 3 people from my hometown from his college days and knows one of my old bosses. 
It’s a small world and getting smaller.

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This blog was all for me and no one else.  Sorry if you are still reading and bored to tears. 

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I had some great conversations about God with the guy who was with me.  It’s exciting to have conversations like that with people, sharing our faith, sharing our fears, sharing our hopes.  I blessed with great kingdom-people around me.  God is good.

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Grace and peace to you.
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http://www.mediafire.com/?kq5irulnumt

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I love Opening Day.  It’s a day of new beginnings, of hope, of excitement for what the future holds.  Today I’m headed to The Ballpark to share in the excitement of a new baseball season and hope for what could be a great year.  I look forward to this day every year with all the pageantry – Roger Staubach throwing out the first pitch after the ball arrives with a parachutist from the Army, the national anthem, the fly-over.  All fun.

Yesterday I celebrated another kind of Opening Day.  This Opening Day was the day that hope was created for me, it was the day my Lord conquered evil once and for all and my Savior rose from death to life, it was the day the tomb was opened so life eternal could burst free.  It was a day created after horrors I cannot imagine and a day that brought beauty I am excited to see.  It was a day that freed me from the bondage of sin and pain and suffering – not that I won’t face those things but the blood of Christ provides cleansing and His exit of the tomb provides peace.  There is no Opening Day that compares to the day Christ arose and walked out of death and into the life God has planned for me.  It was and remains a spectacular day.

The link above is for a Rob Bell video on the resurrection.  When you have a few minutes, watch and listen to one of the best preachers/wordsmiths of our day. 

Grace and peace to you.

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Peace is an elusive thing.  I love seasons of peace whether it’s for a day, a week…only a few minutes.  The calm, the serenity of knowing everything is OK.  Maybe it’s just me but those seasons of peace come and go and I’m not always aware of their coming or going.  Sometimes it’s over a course of hours and days, sometimes it’s immediate (and I think I hate the immediate going the most).  I never knew what peace was like until I really began to understand what God is like.  I remember times when I thought things were good, manageable at least and I thought that was peace but it wasn’t.  It wasn’t the peace I’ve found that holds me in the hardest of times, that allows me to hurt but to believe that God is sovereign, that He knows my pain and He is going to help me heal and recover.  Knowing that, feeling that when I am in the midst of a storm is the craziest thing I have ever experienced but there are some storms that get so dark, I lose focus of who is in control and resort to trying to find my own way again and that is when I lose the peace, when all seems hectic, when I feel panic setting in, when I start grasping for something to hold onto and become defensive.

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I want peace in my life; not a stress-free life, not a life of riches and health, only a knowledge that God never lets go, never walks away, never hides or hopes I will simply drift off but remains steadfast in His overwhelming flood of love for me.

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I told a friend the other day I was ready to be with God and I think it freaked him out a little bit.  I could only ask him what the ultimate hope of being a Christian is if it’s not spending eternity with God.  He asked why I didn’t want to wait around and see what goes on.  All I could say was that I can’t imagine anything here being as good as what God has waiting for me but I want to live in the moment while I am here since this seems to be where God wants me right now.  When it’s His time, it will be my time.  Until then, it is well with my soul.

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These guys played at the conference I was attending last week and this song is all over me right now. 

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Grace and peace to you.
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I find myself being careful with my thoughts that go on this blog.  The last few months have sent me into a tailspin of putting together thoughts and words and saying what I want to say.  I took time off thinking I would come back ready to write and still find myself going days, fingers on the keyboard and thoughts coming from all over that lack cohesion and, sometimes, lack civility.

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One thing that keeps floating around in my head is the idea of worship.  I know there are debates that could go on for eons about worship allowing us to spend time on our soapboxes while ignoring the broken and the lost.  That is not my intent here but I have certainly had some heart and mind changes about what worship is and looks like and this is my spot to start sorting some of it out and for the purposes of what I’m talking about today, I’m only looking at our assemblies on Sundays where Christians come together to worship God. 

I’ve seen a church building on I-35 around Waco sporting a sign for a 39 minute worship.  Now, for some of us, worshiping for 39 minutes would be a record because we are thinking about what needs to get done this week, whether anyone noticed our closed eyes, wondering if we are going to get out of here in time to eat and see the Cowboys game or whether we need to pick a restaurant with a TV, wondering why Wade is starting Barber over Jones or Jones over Barber and why in the world Jerry ever signed TO.  We are thinking about the next vacation, the next day, the next big spending spree.  We are doing a lot of things without participating until someone mentions the 39 minute worship and we re-engage to decry something so dastardly.  On the other hand, if church runs over more than 60 minutes (21 more minutes than the other guys are putting in), we are in an uproar that it took too long, the preacher’s sermon isn’t that interesting, the comments made by Brother So-and-So were unnecessary, too many songs, blah, blah, blah. 

I grew up in the Church of Christ and I knew that the service should not take more than an hour and if it did, well someone was going to hear about it.  Yes, we can come together to worship for one hour but that’s all you get God.

Let me suggest that if we come together and our hearts are fully attuned to worship the LORD, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Redeemer and Savior of our souls, if we come fully aware of who it is we are praising, an hour could pass by like a moment and we would never know.  If the greatness of God was on our hearts and on our minds, what could possibly be more compelling than a day full of worship? 

Understand, these are the questions I am asking of myself and no one else.  I am only confessing my past problems and my current thoughts on what and who I want to be from this day forward.  There is no doubt in my my mind that the people leading a worship service can have a great impact on the mood and attitude of the worshippers but if I don’t show up with the right attitude, the right mind-set towards my God, I need to check my heart and examine my thoughts because I know, deep down, I want to lay it all out for the One who has saved me from death, covered me in grace and loves me like no other. 

Grace and peace to you.
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I’m sitting in the Chicago airport waiting to catch a plane back to the Metromess surrounded by a world community.  A woman sitting close to me that might not be a woman.  A family that I’m guessing is from Germany – it sounds like German to me anyway.  A dad taking two of his boys to Japan for spring break and hundreds of other people coming home and going somewhere.  I always enjoy sitting back and watching, trying to guess their stories.  It’s fascinating to me how people come and go, some are hurried, others not, all with places to go and people to see.  I wonder if they are all aware of their purpose?

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I attended the Catalyst One Day conference at Willow Creek Church yesterday.  An awesome conference and a great facility.  What church shouldn’t have a cafeteria that will feed 2,100 people in an hour, have a coffee shop that is bigger than any Starbucks I’ve been to and it’s own bookstore?  Anyway, I’m at the conference on my own and walk up to the line to get in and find myself next to a guy wearing cowboy boots.  I asked where he was from and his response cracked me up.  “I’m from a little town outside Fort Worth, Texas called Bridgeport.”  I laughed and told him I was from a little town outside Fort Worth, Texas called Decatur.  What are the odds?  I later ran into a friend who used to live in Decatur but moved several years ago.  It’s a small world.

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The Catalyst conference was awesome.  The topic was momentum and while it was targeted to church leaders (all of them should have been there) it applied to the business world equally well.  It was a blessing and a great learning experience to be there.

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I’m ready to head home and it’s time to head to the gate.  Sic ’em Bears!

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Grace and peace to you.
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I’m stuck trying to decide who to pull for during the remainder of March Madness.  I’m a Duke guy at heart so they will likely get my vote but I think it will come down to Kentucky and Syracuse.  Speaking of Baylor (huh?), I think Scott Drew is a very underrated coach.  What he’s done with the Baylor program has been amazing.  He should be able to name his price to stay there and he seems like a guy who would name a reasonable price.  I hope he will write a book one day.

I’m stuck on the theme of hardship and suffering.  I wish I wasn’t, I really do, but I see it more and more in my life and all around me.  

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“You can’t live an inspiring life without hardship.” – Donald Miller

How many of us are inspired by the story of the guy who lives in a great middle-class family, goes to college, marries a nice girl, gets a good job and drives a Volvo?  BORING.  No, we are inspired by the young black man living on the streets who makes it to the NFL because of a good family.  We are inspired by a wealthy white family that takes a chance on a homeless kid so they can give him a better life.  We are inspired by a family reeling in agony by the death of a child who had inspired hundreds in life and thousands through unexplainable hardship.  We’re inspired by the baseball player who’s trying to overcome drug addiction and his wife who has overcome bitterness and now speak boldly about the love of God in their lives.  Those are the people who inspire us to be better, to walk closer to Christ. 

I’m under attack by Satan and I feel it.  I feel it in the core of my being and know he is waiting for an opening, waiting to find me vulnerable and he’s very good at what he does.  Praise God that He loads us up with the Holy Spirit.  We are responsible to call on the Spirit and when we do there is power to stand strong that is unexplainable. 

I’m stuck on trying to find the path that allows me to follow God daily, moment-by-moment.  I want desperately to seek God’s will, to hear His voice, to know where He wants me to go, what He wants me to do, to say the things He wants me to say. 

I need you LORD.  Fill me up with strength and wisdom so I will see things as you want me to see them.  I’m weak and I need the power that comes only from you.  I’m scared and I need the courage that comes only from you.  I praise you because you never leave, you never let go, you always love unconditionally.  I want people to see your love in me and flowing out of me.  Use me.  Make me your instrument on earth.

Grace and peace to you.
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Health care “reform” is supposed to be shoved down our throats today.  Now, I’m all for health care reform but having been in a business that worked with Medicare I can tell you the opportunity for abuse is there and the government has no sense of what they are doing.  I’m still saddened that the President acted like he had learned a lesson about partisanship and is going to allow this bill to come through without a true vote.  I’ll all for change President Obama but not the kind of change that is forced on me by people who really don’t know what they are doing.

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Great quote I read this weekend, I believe attributed to Albert Einstein.  “We all want to be on the mountaintop but nothing grows there.”  Isn’t that the truth?  We want to “ride the wave”, to have a “mountaintop experience” and the experience of reaching a pinnacle is exhilarating but not much happens at the top.  All the work, all the growing, all the pain needed to prepare us for the pinnacle is done at the base of the mountain, even in the valley between mountains.  We need to be prepared for the fact that when we reach the mountaintop, we can’t stay there long and will have to come back to where we started at some point and do it all over again.  Our life with Christ is like that.  We have moments of awakenings only to find that there are more awakenings ahead of us.  We may feel like we are on top of the mountain one day but we’ll have another mountain we have to climb soon and better beginning preparing for it.  We cannot remain where nothing grows.

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Grace and peace to you.
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Whew!  The misery on TV called Longhorn basketball is over.  They made me think they could put it together and then blew it in the last seconds of overtime.  So much talent and they totally fell apart through the year.

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I’m pulling for Villanova now.  I read an article on Scottie Reynolds and he sounds like a true class-act.  I’m sure there are others but he’s my fan favorite now.  I’m predicting Kansas will beat West Virginia for the championship.

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Ron Washington.  Wow.  Anyone else wanting to line up to throw stones at the man?  The reporting makes it sound like he’s the first guy in baseball to admit to wrongdoing and I think that is symptomatic of our society right now.  High profile figures admit to doing something wrong and people (who most likely have just as many flaws) and reporters line up to castigate them.  I have empathy for Ron and Tiger and all the steroids guys, not condoning what they have done but clearly understanding the battle against evil they face.  I don’t understand all the people railing against them as if they don’t have their own battles and sins to confess.

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I was talking to a friend the other day discussing the idea that there is more evil oppression on people and churches than at any other time in our life.  Maybe it’s only because our eyes are opening to the spiritual battle or maybe it’s because of what lies ahead of us but pain and torment sure seem more evident today than I remember.  I have theories on what that means but I know this – trusting and following the will of God is the only path that leads to peace and joy.  I hope He will continue to strengthen me and use me to help others find the Way.

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Grace and peace to you.
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