It’s in the small hours that you hear the best. When the tiredness of your mind and body opens your ears and your heart. You hear him through the song that always plays in your head that suddenly gets a little louder.
You hear holy
holy
holy
and not only is it easier to hear, but easier to worship. His voice cuts through the quiet like a blade as the small soft breaths of your son are warm on your bare chest, close to your heart.
You know and feel and know and feel that someday all of this will be over and all that’s left will be you and him and that will be your time to curl in his lap or fall at his feet or maybe dance before him to the song that always plays in your head that you can suddenly hear a little better.
You realize that what matters most and is most real is the love you show people–all people. Even if, especially if they haven’t done
Anything
to deserve it.
You realize through and at your core the height and depth and width of the love that brought you to this place and you throw your head back and say
oh my God
Because you can’t kneel or do anything else because you’re holding thirty-odd pounds of toddler, even though the song that always plays in your head suddenly gets louder still.
Conviction comes that the love you’ve shown people has been feeble compared to the love shown you and suddenly it crashes into your heart anew and you feel the very hands of
He who was and is and is to come.
Your thumb is flying across the small keyboard because you don’t want to miss anything, even though you know your words can’t do the feeling any sort of justice.
You really just want people to know what it feels like.
You realize you have to tell them, no matter what.
And the song that always plays in your head quiets a little. It’s time to sleep once again, and you want to return to the warmth of your bed and the arms of your wife.
There is so much to do, and so very little time. The soft music in your head leads you down the hall as you deposit your son in his Angry Bird sheets. You see a light under the door of his big brother and realize he probably fell asleep with a book or video game control in his hand again. You remember yourself at almost 9.
You open your bedroom door and see her with an arm thrown over onto your side of the bed and you think that of all the things you’ve done in your life, it’s hard to find something on this earth that compares to laying next to this woman who loves you even though so much about you is wrong.
It occurs to you as you lay down next to her how much you’ve learned and changed and grown since meeting her. You can hear your song now, where before it was only an occasional note on a gentle breeze.
She’s had a rough night with a bad cold and you wish you could take her sickness away, but you can’t so you just pray for her as the song that always plays in your head becomes a lullaby, and you slowly drift back to sleep.
CS Lewis once said something like “a man wishing to remain an atheist cannot be too careful of what he reads.” I think it’s much the same with a man wishing to remain unconvicted of something. I read two things the other day, which when taken together busted me up like a piñata at a first grade birthday party.
This first was this. I was able to read through Radical, by David Platt, in a single day (what can I say? Setup days always have a lot of downtime)
I read passages like this one:
“If we were left to ourselves with the task of taking the gospel to the world, we would immediately begin planning innovative strategies and plotting elaborate schemes. We would organize conventions, develop programs, and create foundations… But Jesus is so different from us. With the task of taking the gospel to the world, he wandered through the streets and byways…All He wanted was a few men who would think as He did, love as He did, see as He did, teach as He did and serve as He did. All He needed was to revolutionize the hearts of a few, and they would impact the world.”
Which made me want to look at this:
Which in turn made me realize my head had been buried in the sand for a very long time. Any time missions or evangelizing the lost around the world came up, my first instinct was to say something like “that’s great for you, but I don’t really feel called to the mission field.”
Is that right?
What occurred to me this week (thanks to Platt) was that when I beg off spreading the Gospel because I don’t feel ‘called’ to it, I’m taking a very clear directive from Jesus to all believers and making it about whether or not I feel I’m supposed to do something.
But I’m not a pastor, I’d say. Because only pastors have experienced the fullness of Christ and can attest to what redemption feels like!
And the truth about that is so what? The disciples didn’t start out that way either. Jesus took regular people and used them to build a church that has endured for millennia. Fishermen. Tax collectors. Ex-whores.
Just tell your story, man. What did Jesus do for you? How did it feel then? How does it feel now?
Ok, you’re saved. What happens next? I realized I didn’t have to be ordained to tell people those things.
Being the hands and feet of Jesus is a piece of cake–said no one, ever.
Platt also makes this point: Every saved person this side of heaven owes the Gospel to every lost person this side of hell.
If that is true, and I am any sort of believer, and any sort of man, who am I to pass on what is commissioned by God?
“God beckons storm clouds and they come. He tells the wind to blow and the rain to fall, and they obey immediately. He speaks to the mountains, ‘You go there,’ and He says to the seas, ‘You stop here, and they do it. Everything in all creation responds in obedience to the Creator…until we get to you and me. We have the audacity to look God in the face and say, ‘No.”
It’s pretty clear what we are to do. What I am to do.
There are sections of scripture that are troubling to me. Not because I don’t understand what the writer is trying to convey, but because I do–and it goes against everything I’ve learned over the course of my life. Take 2 Corinthians 12, for instance.
In verses 9-10, Paul talks about boasting in his weaknesses; even delighting in them. That was hard for me to understand, because I think it’s more natural to be ashamed of the ways we are weak. It’s hard for me to imagine feeling delight at my lifelong struggle against food addiction, the desire to binge drink, or my occasional struggles with lust (in the form of wanting to look at inappropriate things). Not that those are my only weaknesses: just what I struggle against most frequently.
Maybe what Paul is trying to say–according to my Life Application Study Bible–is that when we are strong in our abilities or resources, we are tempted to do God’s work on our own. That can lead to pride.
For me, that means if I was talking to someone about resisting the urge to empty a 12 pack or click on the wrong web site and saying that it was easy not to do it, or that I could resist because I was strong I would be full of what my son calls “peepoo.”
I am able (mostly) to resist these inclinations and others because God gives me that ability. Left to my own, I wouldn’t even try to resist. So if I accomplish something in spite of the things I struggle with, it means so much more. And only then am I strong.
It’s interesting how that works, because it shouldn’t. I guess God knows more of my strengths and affinities than I do. Where I see a weak pile of desire, addiction, and sin, God sees something else. And in spite of my own callow nature he is somehow able to use me, and my weaknesses.
This morning I asked God to show me in His word what I needed to do to change my life, my attitude, my everything. I asked Him to show me why I’ve been having the struggles I have been, and how I can persevere. He showed me this, from Hebrews 12:1-3….
Today, my six year-old son, John, got in a spot of trouble at school. It was nothing major, but it resulted in three days of “lunchtime detention.” What happened was that right now my son has a couple of crusty cold sore/fever blisters on his bottom lip. This kid decided he was going to make some sport of him for it. John has been taught to use his words, and ask others to stop their errant behavior in situations like that. So he asked the kid to stop making fun of him. Eventually, the kid apparently did. John, however, was still mad, so he punched the other kid in the chest anyway. My wife called me at work to tell me about it, and I could not find it in myself to be mad at him for defending himself. He has also been taught that the bible teaches us to be kind, and to turn the other cheek when things like this happen. We teach the boys they should treat others how they’d like to be treated. So now, we’re going to talk to him about the incident tonight. We’ll explain to him about appropriate behavior. We’ll tell him he should always go to the teacher first.
Also, I want to talk to him about what bullying is, and what he should do if he encounters it. I do not believe today’s incident does, but kids being the jerks they sometimes are, he may come into contact with it eventually. Or perhaps even be the bully, and I really hope that never happens. There’s been a lot said and written about bullying—both cyber and otherwise—over the past few months and years, and much of that was in regard to young people experiencing it in such a way that they ended up taking their own lives. Or expressing their frustration and pain through taking out on their tormentors, or sometimes just people who happened to be there the day they decided they could not take it anymore.
While I do not believe violence is ever the first choice in a situation, I do believe sometimes it is the only choice. If either of my boys were being physically mistreated in some way–by anyone–I would tell them to first inform someone in authority, like a parent or teacher. If the kid stops, fine and move on. If the kid does not stop, and they feel threatened or are themselves protecting a person being mistreated, I would tell them to defend themselves appropriate to the situation. I believe there are bullies who only respond to like treatment. I would rather see my sons strike another person than to be mishandled to such a degree they are seriously harmed. In other words, I believe sometimes it is appropriate to defend one’s self. I wish someone had shown me how, and when, to defend myself. My dad didn’t, and all my older brother showed me was how to be a bully myself.
Not long ago, there was a young girl who was twelve, I think, who leapt from a silo to her death over a situation with some other kids at her middle school that began over a boy two of the girls liked and escalated through a series of social media posts and text messages more or less inviting the girl to die.
There’s some legal situation now, where a teen boy was so set upon by his boss at a fast food restaurant that he ended up shooting himself in front of his family, I believe it was. Or in front of their house. Something like that.
Or how about the young Rutgers student who leapt from a bridge in New York after he was cruelly “outed” over the internet by his roommate. Also the Irish girl who was so piled on by other students in her high school here in the U.S. that she sought out a rope.
Cruel behavior amongst children is rampant these days, and it’s terrifying. They are awful to each other, for all manner of things–sometimes for no reason at all.
Fat kids are bullied (I could tell a few personal stories about that one). And skinny kids. Poor kids, or kids who wear the wrong clothes. Kids who are from the “wrong” side of town, whose house might not be as nicely made as other, more well-to-do students. Kids with birthmarks, or pockmarks, or scars. Sometimes–maybe even a lot of times–kids bully other kids out of jealousy for something the bullied kid has, or can do.
Nothing is so cruel as a teenager who for some reason thinks the only way he or she can reach the proper level of popularity is to prey on weaker kids, or kids with some imperfection or maybe just a character trait or even an accent that can be spotlighted.
I think that stuff (bullying) starts at home. By that I do not mean that a parent or sibling is the source of what’s going on, or that he or she being bullied has brought it on themselves. But home is where how they learn about why things are. We parents have the solemn duty to explain. If I thought it were productive, I could tell lots of stories to my kids about my childhood about how hard things sometimes were at home and with other kids. Except I don’t believe that would help anyone. Sure, transparency is always held in high regard, but only if it edifies, or if the boys can take something helpful away from it.
I had a cast on my left arm nearly to my shoulder for most of my freshman year. Usually, most kids left me alone, but for the first week or so after it happened, it offered me some small measure of celebrity because I was able to relate the story of the break over and over again. It made a sound like a large carrot stick snapping, and I got to where I could describe it pretty well. Soon, though, I was just another poor and overweight kid who wanted desperately to disappear into the swirl of activity that high school was.
But I remember there was this one kid in my 9th grade Geography class who sat directly behind me and thought it was great fun to kick or punch me in the small of my back. I suppose he wanted to get a response from me, but he never did. I didn’t tell on him, but I never made a sound to acknowledge the blows, either.
The teacher was this tiny old German Jewish lady—a sweet little grandma—that knew a lot about the world, and probably much of cruelty. This same guy that liked to pick on me, along with a “friend,” one day cut a small swastika from masking tape and stuck it on the lens of the classroom projector, so that when Mrs Kohls turned on the projector at the back of the class, a large swastika was displayed on the movie screen at the front.
I don’t remember what she did after that, but when I walked out of the class that morning the swastika guy accosted me just outside the door. I didn’t say anything to him, but just shoved him against the wall and walked away, directly to the counselor’s office.
I didn’t do anything to speak up for the teacher, or even for myself, really. I didn’t have any fantasies of coming back to school strapped and exacting my revenge on my tormentors. I just wanted to get away from them. So I made up some dumb reason, asked for a transfer to another class, and got it.
I was sick of hearing about how my clothes looked cheap, and how I should be going to a different school. I was sick of hearing that my hair was too long, or too shaggy, or that I was a pussy because I didn’t stick up for myself and fight, or play football (because even at that age, I was very large). Football, of all things. So what if I didn’t want to play football? Varsity and JV both stunk anyway. And in regard to not sticking up for myself, it wasn’t necessarily that I was afraid to–I’d just never learned how. I just gritted my teeth and bore it as best I could.
I often wondered what he and others got out of mistreating me and other kids that weren’t cool enough, or weren’t something enough to be offered the same respect and freedom from cruelty that the majority of the other kids received. Also worth mentioning, it was about this age that I did begin to develop a defense mechanism that would stay with me for most of my adult life–self deprecation. If I ragged on myself hard enough, there would not be anything left for them to say. I actually became pretty adept at it, and honed into a rather quick and occasionally wicked sense of humor. I felt like it helped me then, and perhaps it did, to an extent.
Except I eventually realized it made me a bully in my own way–making fun of other kids without the ability to effectively banter and talk smack. It was so easy to do, and it took the attention off me. All I had to do was give the same crap to others I had gotten for so long myself. I should also add that one of my chief regrets as a teen is that I never did anything about that thing those two idiots did with the projector and the tape, or do anything afterward. I knew it was wrong, and I don’t know why I dragged my feet and did nothing. What I wanted most was to get away from those two kids–to find something that would make sense, because nothing else did. I never really like the school and the classes I was made to attend did, either.
What I did find was drama class, and a room full of other kids who didn’t fit in anywhere, either. It was a big, really diverse group, and more importantly to me, none of the “cool” kids were in it. I had never been so happy to be anywhere in my life.
It was that class which helped me to realize that I was not alone. There were other kids who were poor, or funny looking, or had scars. I didn’t know any gay people at the time, but I would guess there may have been one or two of them there, too.
What I did realize was that in time, things really did get better, and I never ended up on a rooftop with a rifle or thought seriously about ending my own life. I was lucky in that regard because I am well aware now of the cost of feeling that way—like you’re alone, and there is no hope at all.
There is hope.
I didn’t know Christ then, but I had a small circle of friends that through their presence in my life lifted me up above the nonsense I was going through, and the careless cruelty of other teenagers. They did it by simply being there. Sometimes with words, and other times with nothing but the quiet fellowship of other people who knew exactly what you were going through. It was enough.
Again, I was very lucky.
If anyone at all is reading this, maybe you’re like that, too. Maybe there’s someone who likes to try and make you feel like you’re nothing, and you never will be. Maybe they hurt you physically, and maybe it’s just words. Either way, the pain is all too real, and sometimes feels like it’s more than you can take.
I am fully aware how hard it is, but I promise you it will not endure forever. There is an end, and things do—really do—get better. Talk to someone. A friend, a family member. A pastor, a teacher. Just talk to someone before you take any steps you cannot come back from. You are here because God wants you to be. You matter, and are loved. God made you the way you are, and God doesn’t make mistakes.
So what I want to do today is explain to my son a little more about Jesus as the one who heals. As the one who grants patience, and balm to a pained and weary soul.
Let me say just a few more words about my experience. After I got out of that class, I never experienced any more bullying. I huddled with the other “drama geeks” and we circled our wagons to protect ourselves. It worked. We were protected, but I’d be lying if I said I never had any fantasies about facilitating some real justice against my two Geography class foes. I wanted them to hurt, and to suffer like I did. I felt like I’d be ok with that–even happy. When I think about it now, I realize that rejoicing in another’s misery–no matter how seemingly justified–is never the right thing to do. I was wrong to hope for the comeuppance of those two young men who had made my life so difficult. Sometimes I wonder what happened to them.
I wish I had a tidy epilogue to wrap things up, but all I can really say is that I am not now who I was then, though that person still lives within me. I hope anyone who reads this that’s been picked on, belittled, hurt or abused in any way just hangs on for a little while longer. And then longer still. Change takes time, for everyone. And you’re stronger than you know.
You don’t have to beat up that kid on the playground for things to get better. Letting God do the hard work helps a lot more. Yet even then, there may come a time when it is appropriate to defend yourself. It’s ok to know how to do it in practice, and in actuality. Though there are consequences for like behavior in that way–sometimes long-lasting ones. If we choose that route, we have to be ready to face them. I can’t find it within myself to tell my kids they should never defend themselves. Sometimes they should.
All I know is my kids need to know the difference between defending themselves and others, and the behavior of a bully, who hurts because he can. Today was probably the first instance where my little guy had someone actively show him meanness at school. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last. I hope he learns more about forgiveness than violence, and that’s on me.
With all that said, I will also teach him what merits a strong defense and what does not.
This is not exactly the right song to close with, but close enough….
For most Christians, Easter is like the Super Bowl. Not to minimize the importance of Christmas; Christ had to be born before he could be crucified. Most people agree Jesus was born, and lived and taught during the first century around Judea and surrounding areas. There is ample evidence available to support the existence of Jesus.
Where people veer off is when you start talking about the Crucifixion and subsequent resurrection of Christ. There is a huge segment of society who emphatically denies it ever happened, and that Jesus is little more than a benevolent bedtime story.
Then you have one of the world’s most practiced religions (Islam), which agrees Jesus lived and taught, but was in the end little more than a skilled teacher and (according to some) prophet. Here’s a great video that breaks it down:
I am not here today to refute Islam, but it is true that without the resurrection, Christmas is little more than the noteworthy birth of a talented first century Rabbi who was really good with people.
I am also not here to “prove” the resurrection true (read Lee Strobel’s The Case for Easter if you want to do that). I just want to tell you what Easter means to me.
I believe in the death and resurrection of Christ because it is by that I am healed, and live and move and have my being. I can’t tell you anything now that will prove that to you if you don’t already believe.
I can just tell you that Easter changed my life, and has made everything that happened to my life over the past 13 years possible.
Easter took a tired, broken, depressed and addicted man who didn’t care about anything (including his life) and gave him a reason to live and a means to live by.
I guess the best way to explain it is that God took the torn fabric of my life and began stitching it up, along with the otherwise mortal wounds to my heart.
He’s the only reason I am alive today, and whether or not you believe me does not change the truth of that in my heart, bound by the gentle and strong hands of a carpenter.
Easter is important to me because it reminds me of why I’m here.
I’ve been getting a real sense of purpose about what to do with my…creative impulses over the past week or so. To tell you the truth, I’ve never really been afraid to write anything before, but I’m afraid of this.
The time commitment scares me.
The research scares me.
Potentially interviewing people scares me.
It all began with a post I retweeted from Rick Warren (read it here). It was extremely well done and not at all what I expected.
It made me think about a lot of things, not the least of which is how we who profess Christ represent him to the gay community. I wonder what they think of us?
What ideas do we have ingrained in our psyches about what gay men and women are like?
What are they like?
Where all this is going I don’t know, but when I read about Dan Cathy in that article it gave me pause about my own preconceived notions regarding LGBT people and how my personal interaction with them has been.
I realized I don’t know any gay people very well here, either at work or in my private life.
I realized the thought of gay people getting married does not make me feel threatened, and I’m really not sure how I feel (or ought to feel) about that.
I feel this issue and the controversy surrounding it is at least partly to blame for young people turning away from The Church (as a corporate entity) I don’t know what to do about that, and I’m not at all sure how this project will turn out in the end.
I only know I have to write it, and that as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
I should be doing homework right now. I have to read this Ezra pound thing and write about it. I have a book I want to finish, and the other day I made a new character on Star Wars, the Old Republic I want to play more.
Right now, I can’t do any of that. I can’t think about doing any of that. I went literally from my knees to this chair in my hotel room and all I can think about is that Huffington Post thing I posted earlier about the prayer of St Francis–that ball started rolling last week when I watched this:
If you have a little over an hour to watch that video, I promise you, you will not regret it. Anyway, the shirt Nick is wearing in this video had the words “where there is hatred, let me sow love” across the chest. I hadn’t heard that before, and I wanted to know where it came from.
It’s from something called “The Prayer of St Francis,” which as the Huffpost article pointed out, was probably not written by St Francis, though he certainly lived his life in such a way he exemplified it. Before I go any further, here it is:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
So I was sitting here at this little desk in my hotel room and I was just idly looking at the Ezra Pound piece and I felt the uncontrollable compulsion to spend some time talking to God. It wasn’t really a question of whether or not I wanted to or if I had something I’d rather be doing, it was more like
nownownownownownownownownownownow…………………
So that’s what I did. At the end of that time the words of the Prayer of St Francis came to me again, and they seemed to me more valid than ever, and an aspiration each believer should hold dear:
make me an instrument of your piece.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Not the whole prayer, just those two lines.
Is that for me, God? I asked myself that as I returned to my chair and opened up this window.
How can I be an instrument?
How can I be used in the furtherance of your kingdom? I am not an apologist. I am not a pastor? I haven’t been to seminary.
I’m just a man. I’m a man that sometimes doubts, and occasionally goes for days without reading his bible. I lapse into old thought patterns and old sin patterns. I swear more than I should. I misuse my gifts.
How can I be an instrument? Don’t you have someone more qualified? Someone who knows what to say to people and what to do?
Where is there hatred that I can do anything about?
God showed me my own family. Sometimes the people I work with. Sometimes even the people I worship with. Yes, even them. Just because people go to church doesn’t mean they cease to have the same problems everyone else does, and respond to others while they’re deeply in the throes of them in a way which is often less than faithful.
How do I sow love? I love these people (love as a verb, that is). I love them in spite of their wrongs, real or perceived. I love them even if I don’t want to. I love them like God would love them.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…
Now I find myself in the position of beginning a task I am not comfortable with. It doesn’t matter that I feel there are other things I have to do. It doesn’t matter that I feel there are other things I am better or more skilled at than sharing love–sowing love–with others, others who need it most. Oswald Chambers says God cares not at all for our natural proclivities, and I think he is absolutely right. God doesn’t care what we’re good at, though he does bless us with talents. I think what Chambers is trying to say is that God doesn’t care if we think we’re good at something. He can and will still use us.
I can say I’m not good at talking to people about Christ. I can believe I’m not good at talking to people about Christ. I might not even be good at evangelizing people in the way others are.
Yet to deny that God can use me and use my story in spite of my shortcomings is to deny God himself.
Tonight I was given a glimpse of the task ahead, and it is daunting. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know how to do it. All I can think of to do right now is to pray these words, and trust God to supply everything else.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love…
The first couple of days here were the worst. When we landed in Fairbanks it was -30ish Fahrenheit, and it was like nothing I’ve ever felt. We were as prepared as we could be, but there’s only so much you can do when it’s that cold. It’s colder than the inside of your freezer, colder than anything you can imagine. When we got up the next morning and were getting ready to leave the hotel in Fairbanks, we found out what happens to hot coffee in -40 degree temperatures:
It freezes before it hits the ground–it turns to vapor when it hits the cold air all spread out. It was amazing.
The other thing was the air itself. It’s so cold, breathing is…different. It feels strange to breathe; the air is that cold. It didn’t quite hurt, but if you had any moisture at all in your nasal passages you could feel it freeze, and that’s a really strange sensation. You wear a face mask because of the cold, and it gets ice crystals on it because of the moisture from your breath.
After those first couple days, it wasn’t so bad, temperature-wise. I think it was easier to acclimate to cold than it was to get used to the heat when I came to Yuma. I didn’t expect that at all. The other thing I did not expect was how beautiful everything was. My Goodness, I’d never seen anything like it, and probably never will again. It reminded me of the beginning part of the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe–ice and snow everywhere. It was like being inside a snow globe, but infinitely colder. Just look at some of the things we saw. And this is only some–if you want to see more of the pictures, just look at my Facebook page.
I also went ice fishing, and that was way more fun than I expected. I got to use a giant auger to drill holes in a frozen lake, and I even caught a few fish, all about the size of this monster here:
I had a moose burger, too. One of the test officers here said her sister had killed it not to long before. It was really good. Nicely seasoned, and freshly barbecued. Awesome beans, too:
The thing I was most worried about was keeping myself together spiritually. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to get to a church, and I was right. There was nothing nearby, and I didn’t want to drive around Delta Junction looking for one when it was all icy everywhere. Plus, I get lost going to the bathroom.
At first, it was really hard to maintain my spiritual discipline. We got up pretty early, so it was difficult to read or pray or journal early in the morning (much like it is at home). And I didn’t feel much like doing any of that when we got back to the hotel, either. So I mainly didn’t do anything in the way of devotional time.
Another problem was that one of my past…problems or…addictions as a single man was to look at certain types of things on the internet. I knew I’d be here with no one to hold me accountable but my own conscience, and that’s not really enough. So I messaged quite a bit with Zeb, and he mentioned this online MMO he played as a good way to kill time. I downloaded it and it pretty much did the trick. If I’m not watching a movie or doing homework on the computer, I’m usually playing Star Wars, the Old Republic. It’s pretty fun, even if I am not particularly good at it.
Still, I was having trouble reconnecting with God–and I fully knew the problem was me. God had not gone anywhere. Then there was this one day where someone had to stay with the test item while the soldiers went back for chow, and I told them I would do it. So it was that I was all by myself at this OP where there was nothing much around at all. I had a warmup room, so I was sitting in there on this little couch when I just started to pray, and ask God to show me something so that I could know he was there even if I wasn’t talking to him at that time. I needed to know that He was still God, was still on the throne. I hate that I got to that point, but it happened.
It wasn’t the first time, and it probably won’t be the last. So I prayed, and I listened to some worship music on my phone and then I got the sense I was supposed to go outside. It had just started snowing kind of softly, and it was about 2 degrees above zero. I looked around for a little bit and it just smacked me upside the head. God had not gone anywhere. He hadn’t moved at all. He was everywhere around me.
After that, things got better. Not perfect, because nothing is perfect. I just found a time and place where I could be alone with God for a little while when I got back from work. It wasn’t first fruits, but it was all kinds of better from what it had been.
The main struggle then was just missing these people:
I’m usually able to speak to Jen and the boys maybe once or twice a day. John called me this morning, as a matter of fact. Jenny said he grabs her phone and says “call daddy.”
Man, I can’t wait until next weekend. I miss them so dang much.
The thing I’ll most take away from this place isn’t the pay check, or the leftover per diem. It’s that one day at the OP when I realized that no matter where I was and no matter what was going on, God was still God, and always would be.
There’s no way I can look at those places–or even those images of them–and think they could have been made by anything but God.
Lord, I want so badly to sleep. I’m tired enough, but my mind is whirling like a light on a police car. The baby is asleep (finally), David is asleep and Jen is sleeping behind me right now.
I’m awake, though. I want my mind to quiet down, but Galatians 2:20 is on my mind
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
and I am aware I need to ask your forgiveness anew, because dying to myself is no easy thing, not when I have to do it every day and my instinct is to live for myself.
I need to be forgiven, though, because it’s hard to forgive.
My discipleship is weak, and it needs to be strong. Forgive me my weakness and strengthen me.
Forgive me my impatience and quick frustration and speak your peace to my heart thirsty for it.
I’m thinking of this trip coming up for work and how easy it would be to slip into old patterns of thought and sin and addiction. But the thing is,
I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ living in me
and when I remember that, things make a little more sense.
But I still need your help, God, because like I said before, dying to myself is not easy. Not when I have this many shortcomings, and I feel like the 1st Lieutenant of sinners.
Forgive me my trespasses, and deliver me from evil.
And right now, God, Lord, Most High, I really just need one simple thing. Besides forgiveness, and deliverance, and strengthened discipleship, and so many other things, please just help me to sleep.
Tomorrow, well…today now, is coming really soon and there is much to do.
A Work in Progress 