The Journey – Part 17a/The Brain On Overload

10 Tuesday Dec 2013

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I survived the first night living in a barn.  It may be my “home” for the next 6 months or so.

I started a new job recently.  It’s 3 hours from home/Decatur so I’m spending 4-5 nights a week in the new town and 2-3 nights back in Decatur on weekends.  I own a home in Decatur that needs some more repairs before I can sell it and I need cash flow to make the repairs.  Quite the conundrum.  So, to save money I am living in a room in a large arena.  It has a small shower, toilet, sink, fridge and microwave.  The bed is on a bed frame that is the wrong size and without cross support so it shakes and shifts whenever I move.  Life can be an adventure even in bed.

It certainly makes one stop and think when living in a barn.  I step outside and the ground is covered with dirt and smells like horse manure.  It smells like those places that hold moisture.  It strips down the niceties of life to some core elements.

I admit I cried last night.  Frustration from the lack of sleep.  Frustration from putting together a bed frame that doesn’t fit or work right.  Frustration from floors with dirt so deep it may never come up.  Frustration that this room isn’t my spacious home.  Frustration that I am away from my son, away from the people who are close to me, who are my support system and trusted advisors, away from everything I have known for the last 18 years and in a place where I know no one in a town so small there is nowhere to go at night besides the Subway and a BBQ joint.  I am alone and things just are not going my way.  Or so it seems…

My mind shoots off to the homeless guys I used to work with in Denton.  Preston, Mikey, Wendell and Chris.  I wonder where they slept last night.  I wonder where the person who just became homeless and doesn’t know the ropes slept last night.  I wonder what they will eat today and where they will get out of the cold.  I wonder if they will ever get a job.  I wonder how happy they would be in my little room.  I wonder how many people they would jam in it to stay warm.  I wonder how they would feel to have a shower this morning, a cold bottle of water at reach.  I wonder how they would feel knowing they could come to work, grab a cup of warm coffee and make a few bucks.

Jesus Calling was the first shot that hit me broadside today.  It started off like this, “Make me the focal point of your search for security.  In your private thoughts, you are still trying to order your world so that it is predictable and feels safe.  Not only is this an impossible goal, it is also counterproductive to spiritual growth.”

I have to admit, I don’t want spiritual growth right now.  Oh, sure I want it on the surface.  I want it handed to me.  I’ve been on a journey for so long that has led to real spiritual growth and it has been a HARD journey.  (Isn’t that typically the case?  Isn’t that what Jesus Calling says today?)  It’s been a 10+ year journey and I’m tired.  Psalms 23:4 says I can walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and God is with me.  I’m just so ready for green pastures and still waters.  I want to live a life of ease for awhile.  Maybe that’s wrong but I’m ready for the road to be easier.  I wonder whether that can happen on this earth.  It seems like other people have it easier but I don’t really know.  I’m blessed with incredible kids and incredible people in my life.  Maybe that is my green pastures.

These thoughts will be continued.  I heard a song this morning that is haunting me and want to introduce it into this discussion.

Grace and peace.

A Night With Spiritual Giants

05 Thursday Dec 2013

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I’ve missed many days and have much ground to cover.  The summary is that I’ve taken a job in Central Texas and am spending my first week in a new place where I know no one.  It is a lonely existence for a guy who usually doesn’t suffer from loneliness.  Maybe it’s just knowing my friends and family were close and now I am in a foreign land alone.  Anyhoo…

Last night I decided to go to church on a Wednesday for the first time in a year.  Honestly, I believe the Holy Spirit said “we’re going to church tonight” and I just followed.  I showed up knowing no one and wondering what it would be like.  A nice gentleman greeted me when I walked in, told me about the 1 Corinthians class (looked like the median age would be 70), a marriage class (maybe someday) and a class for people involved in a addiction rehab treatment.  Well that peaked my interest for sure.

Over the past few years, I’ve developed a heart for the homeless and for people who keep getting run over by problems they can’t control and don’t know how to deal with it.  The addicts certainly fall in that category.  I know enough about turning to the wrong things to ease your pain to understand how hard it can be for lots of people.  So, I approached the class with a little trepidation and great interest.

Wow!  I didn’t know I was entering a room with people who would speak deeply into my heart, who would bring tears to my eyes, who would encourage me so much.  There were probably 50 or more people there, coming to a place where (in their own words) they have felt loved and accepted like no place else.

Avery looks to be in her early 50’s but could be younger.  She’s been addicted for years and in and out of prison numerous times.  She’s completed the rehab program, living in an apartment on her own and loving God.  The teacher played Chris Tomlin’s Amazing Grace and you could see the truth of it on her face.  To listen to her talk about grace blew me away and I knew I was in the midst of a spiritual giant.  To here her talk about finally spending a Thanksgiving with her family because they are letting her back into their life now that she is clean is a story of grace and mercy that pierces the heart.

Megan finishes the program next Tuesday and will move away.  She also looks older than her years, streetwise and her words convey very hard years and huge mistakes.  She also talks about grace and how the Holy Spirit speaks to her and does it in ways that make you forget anything else is happening and all you can see and hear is Megan and her love for God.

Bobby looks to be late 20’s/early 30’s.  He’s hard and tattoo’d but his words make me want to crumble.  My job is taking me away from my son and our Thursday night ritual. I may miss a few baseball games.  It is KILLING me.  My stomach is in knots every time I think of the days I may not get to see him I normally would.  Bobby hasn’t seen his kids in 3 years.  CPS took them and he doesn’t know where they are.  He is hurting.  He wants to get his life on track and he wants to see his kids.  Oh Lord, remind me of Bobby often so I will pray over him and his recovery and I will remember the blessings I do have.

I sat in a room of addicts last night and prayed that I will one day have their faith and their knowledge of God’s word.  Even more, I prayed I would have their faith in God’s grace for my life.  They are spiritual giants and the Holy Spirit led me into their presence to hear Good News I needed to be reminded of last night.

Grace and peace.

The Lesson

28 Thursday Nov 2013

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It’s Thanksgiving Day and it’s a day I’m struggling to give thanks.  I know, in reality, my life is really pretty good compared with most of the world but the pain I feel is the greatest pain I know.  Some family issues are hurting my heart today.  They will pass and I will get over them but today they hurt.

So I get an email the other day with a link to this video.  It’s a good listen with a good message.  It’s a lesson I needed and need this day.  I’m working on leaving the pain behind and being grateful.  I’m one who carries my pain longer than I should – it’s just who I am.  I’m also one who wants to live more gratefully.  To choose to experience joy and happiness.  I appreciate the lesson I got in this video.

Grace and peace.

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_steindl_rast_want_to_be_happy_be_grateful.html?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2013-11-27

The Plan

26 Tuesday Nov 2013

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I’m fascinated by people who claim their life has followed a plan.  Mine seems to be all over the board.  I wonder if I’m a bad planner because I didn’t think I would be divorced, unemployed and having to move to get work.  None of that was in my plan.

I understand people are all different.  Maybe some people are created to follow their own scripts and some, like me, are tossed around like a salad getting mixed in with lots of other veggies and stuff we never intended to be tossed with.

One thing I have come to know is perseverance.  I wonder if people who’s life follows a plan understands perseverance the way I do.  I wonder what they understand that I don’t.

Supposedly God has plans for me.  I wish I knew what they were.  I wish he would reveal them in a very understandable way.  I wish he would speak to me in a way that I know it’s all going to be okay.  I don’t have a clue what the plan is and what is going to come out of the blue next.  I wish I knew the plan.

Grace and peace.

The Journey – Part 16

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

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I want to be better today than I was yesterday.  I want to be a better Christ-follower, a better father, a better friend.  The challenge is that I remember the past too easily, I remember my mistakes and my failings and it is easy for me to believe that is who I am.  It’s hard to get better when you see yourself for your failings and weaknesses.  It’s close to impossible to get better when that is one’s focus.

I am blessed to have many good people in my life.  I’ve used Christian-centered counseling that has done wonders to help me see who God made me to be.  I have friends that constantly lift me up and encourage me.  I have children who love me in spite of the things I’ve done to hurt them.  God is surrounding me with who I need to let go of yesterday and live for today, for a better today.

The challenge of the journey is the past.  The past is the past, not something that defines me.  I have to remember that.  And constantly remind myself.

Today, I will try to be better than I was yesterday.  It’s really all I can do.  Love better.  Look for what God puts in front of me better.  Pray better.  Serve better.

Grace and peace.

The Journey – Part 15

17 Thursday Oct 2013

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God.  Father.

Daddy.  Papa.

I am comfortable addressing God as the first two names/concepts.  I struggle with addressing God as the latter two.  I used to think it was my upbringing, my faith tradition, doctrine.  Whatever, I thought I wasn’t comfortable with it because of something I was taught.

Recently, I have started to see the difference not as teaching but as experience.  I think of Daddy and Papa as terms of affection.  Terms I would use for someone who loves me in a fun way, hurts with me in a personal way, celebrates me out loud.  That’s not my experience with God.

Maybe it’s my fault.  Maybe I’m not approaching God appropriately.  I use the terms God and Father with great respect and with love.  I believe God gave his son for my eternal life and if that isn’t love, what is?  I believe he loves me but I don’t feel that close affection I feel with my own dad.  My life hasn’t been one where I experienced God is giddy ways but certainly in protective ways.

Papa goes out and plays catch with me, wrestles with me, builds model airplanes with me.  Daddy takes me hunting and holds me close when I’m hurting.

God loves me.  He provides for me.  He has given me the most important thing in a life to come.  He isn’t touchy-feely and I’m not sure he has much concern for my comfort and safety in this world.  I love God, fear God, respect God but I don’t feel affection from God.

I hope I’m the odd one.  I hope others experience God in ways I can’t imagine and that one day, I will too.  In the meantime, I pray to the God I know to help me, to provide for me, to give me favor.  I hope he will but I still see him as providing for my eternal life, not my present life.  It’s a struggle I have internally.  One I want to figure out and get answers to one day.

Grace and peace.

The Journey – Part 14

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

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I’ve been reading in the Psalms lately and focusing on passages about taking refuge in God.  It’s where I want to take refuge but I still feel like I’m standing in the rain with no cover over me.

I want to have peace and even gratefulness with my present situation.  I just want out.  I don’t like it.  I don’t like the way I feel people look at me and talk about me when I’m not around.  I don’t like all the advice for what I should do.  I don’t like not knowing what I should do and think all the advice is great but don’t have enough time in the day to do all the things people tell me I should do.

Journeys aren’t easy.  I was telling a friend recently how proud I was to raise kids who could travel 12 hours in a day and only need to stop twice.  I want to speed along and get to where I’m going.  A couple of breaks for gas, for food and to take care of business and we are off and running again.  I wonder how I will think about my next vacation.  Heck, I wonder if there will ever be another vacation but I digress.

I am blessed to have some good friends who stay positive around me.  Friends who tell me they are praying for me.  Friends who know something is coming.  Friends who believe in the good.  I need that because it’s easy to see and hear and believe the bad.  Easy.

One of my greatest challenges in a time like this is falling away from God.  It’s easy to think he has forgotten me and seek comfort in things that are not of God.  I’ve spent a lifetime doing it and old habits are hard to break.  Maybe that’s why I am in this desert place.  Maybe it’s my time to decide whether I am going to break old patterns and seek God or stay in my regular patterns and simply acknowledge God.  For me, that is quite the battle.

God, please get me out of here soon.  I don’t like it.  I’m afraid.  I’m lonely.  I feel lost and forgotten.  Please God, lead me back to high ground.  Give me favor.  Show me my purpose and turn me loose.  Please God, get me out of this sad, dark place.

Grace and peace.

The Journey – Part 13

10 Thursday Oct 2013

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“There is the God we want and the God that is.  Rarely are they the same.” – Patrick Morley

I have come to learn that God doesn’t bless things, he blesses his people.  I look back now at a prayer life that usually was full of requests for things, not for people.  I prayed for the tangible while God works in the intangible.  I wonder why I don’t get the answers I want and have found it is usually because I am looking in the wrong place.  

I don’t know how to answer the people who say they prayed for a close parking spot at Walmart and got one.  I don’t know how to answer the people who say they prayed for a successful business and got it.  I don’t know how to answer people who pray for tangible results and believe they get them.  I certainly am careful when I respond to people who pray for tangible things and don’t get them.  

I have been guilty of praying to the God I want.  The God who will give me the “things” I want.  I have avoided praying God to show me who I am.  I have failed to pray for a clean and pure heart.  I have seldom prayed to see the world as God sees the world.  

Who knows what I would get if I prayed more diligently for God to reshape me in His image.  What if I prayed to enjoy the wilderness experience?  What if I prayed for God to  do in me what he did in Moses.  In Joseph.  In Jesus.  Do I really want to spend my life out of place, wandering in the desert?  Do I really want to be sold into slavery or imprisoned?  Do I really want to be ridiculed and sacrificed?  Not hardly.

Oh Lord, gently break me and with favor, rebuild me.  

Grace and peace.

The Journey – Part 12

08 Tuesday Oct 2013

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I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. – Psalms 31:7

One of the challenges of my life is that I have taken refuge in so many places I shouldn’t take refuge.  I have written before about my belief that God leaves a hole in us and we get to choose what we put in that hole.  It’s where I seek refuge from my fears, from my challenges and from the arrows life shoots at me.  I have gone to that place and taken refuge with all the wrong things; things that are of this world and temporary.  I tell you, they are powerful and they help.  They are seductive and easy to access.  They are tangible too and that is certainly one of the biggest attractions.

It’s hard to take refuge in the unseen and untouchable.  At least, it’s really, really hard for me.  I can talk to God but I can’t hear his audible voice.  I can read the Bible but I can’t see him and talk to him about it.

I’m in a place where it is easier to seek refuge in the things I can see and consume.  I know it isn’t what is right and what will last.  It’s just quick and easy and comforting.  It’s in these times I quit communicating.  I turn inside and try to hold off the outside.  I want to hide and hope things change.

Booze doesn’t last.  Drugs don’t last.  Women don’t last.  Gambling doesn’t last.  Shopping doesn’t last.  Pride doesn’t last.  Working doesn’t last.  Exercising doesn’t last.

The Psalmist David knew that.  He knew anguish and affliction and he knew where to seek refuge.  The 31st Psalm is all about it.  My affliction and anguish is all around me and I know I need refuge.  I’m working hard today to seek it in the right place.

Grace and peace.

The Journey – Part 11

30 Monday Sep 2013

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Life’s journey offers a fantastic view…it only requires me to slow down and look around.  I have sped through life relying on what I know (or think I know) or what someone taught me that I accepted as truth.

I’ve learned that Buddhists have some great insights on suffering.  I see their teaching within the framework of Christianity but the churches I grew up in didn’t talk much about suffering.

I’ve learned that introspection is painful as the layers are peeled away…and freeing as true revelation is revealed.

I’ve learned that faith isn’t easy.  In fact, for me, it is extremely difficult.  I have found myself on my knees, tears flowing like rivers, while hearing myself yell, scream and curse at God.  That’s hard faith because I trust He isn’t going to run like most people would were I doing that to them.  And then there are the days I go without ever talking or acknowledging God because I don’t feel His presence, don’t think He really cares about what happens to me in this life and certainly isn’t using his omnipotence to help my situation.  Faith isn’t easy.

I’ve learned that things I often think are important are really trivial, if not meaningless.  I’ve learned that things that matter the most are often overlooked or taken for granted.

The journey offers so much opportunity to learn.  And often I pass on the opportunity to continue doing what I’ve been doing.

It’s time to open my eyes and my heart to what the journey holds for me.

Grace and peace.