What a sameness a year makes

It must be the time of year to Blog.  I realized that I haven’t written anything in over a year and when I look at what I last wrote it is amazing that over the last 365 plus days not a lot has changed.  Just like the last post I wrote I am in the middle of writing a paper and wondering how it will be done before the deadline and thinking that Dr. Pepper (or its cheaper Kroger version) just doesn’t provide focus like it once did.

I was reading a friends lent blog (mentioned last year as well) and he put words to my exact feelings.  What a blessing it is to see how God uses the similar circumstances of those around us to remind us that we are truly one big family connected by faith and living life in the same crazy world.  Feeling a little overwhelmed last week I was sitting in chapel and had one of those, “OK God I really need some words from your Scripture spoken directly into my heart right now” moments and randomly read Isaiah 30:18-21.  What a blessing it is to know and be known by God.

Lent 5- Sleepy

The lack of sleep from raising two boys and mental exertion of school have caught up to me.  I have assignments due and caffeine just isn’t cutting it anymore.  I have reached the point of total exhaustion.  At times like this I recall some wise words that one very wise man said to another very wise man: “Sometimes the best thing you can do for the Kingdom is go to bed”.  So with that said… night, night.

Lent 4- Breathing

Before going to bed I was having some quiet time and sitting on the floor in our room I could hear my wife and our two boys breathing as they were sleeping.  It was one of the most peaceful things I have ever experienced.  Being still and silent and tired is a good time to hear God speak.  This is what I heard (this one is a bit painful):

‘The problem is you refuse to listen to what I have to say, and somewhere along the way you decided not to work hard, so I can’t use you. Quit trying to please yourself and leave that up to Me. When our time together is sweet it is all you need, be fulfilled by My love for you and your love for Me.’

This is the kind of thing that happens when you commit to having God have His way with you.  He comes in and starts to clean house.  In the past months I have been doing and doing and not listening.  My usual response to Jesus is, “thanks for the tip, I can take it from here”.  This eventually leads to me wondering how I have ended up where I am and why I don’t see God working in my life.  Tonight is another one of those stop running around pointlessly and start listening for the game plan kind of times.  Now that my attention has been gotten I can see the stage being set for something new and refreshing.

Lent 3- Hebrew

Learning Hebrew just got hard.  For the first two weeks of the semester the alphabet and vowels were flowing from my tongue like hymns sung by angels (Ok that isn’t true but at least I knew them).  Suddenly the multiple rules about word forms reached out and grabbed my confidence and ripped it in half like the Power Team rips phone books.  I had a feeling this would happen.  Learning the Hebrew language is much like learning a lot of things.  For me over the last few years I have ‘learned’ to play tennis, fly fish, and play Guitar Hero.  In each of these cases it has been the same; in the beginning things are exciting as I have learned the basics of something new.  Then after working on those basics it quickly becomes apparent that in order to make great strides of improvement I will need to work much harder.  I can serve a tennis ball one way but never figured out how to play at the net.  I can cast a fly one way but never figured out how to roll cast.  I can play songs on intermediate but once that orange button pops up in Guitar Hero I am done for.  I hit a ceiling and breaking through it isn’t easy.  Apparently, learning a new language is just as difficult and this is usually where I decide that I know enough and try something new without refining my skills.

In the past I have not been a great ‘finisher’.  In the NBA players like Kobe get paid big bucks not because they are great every second of every game but because they are great in the last ten seconds of the game when the team needs one shot that will be the deciding factor between winning and losing.  Learning Hebrew isn’t about winning and losing but it is about persevering and putting in effort up until the end goal is met.  I don’t want to settle for knowing a little Hebrew, I want to know as much as possible so as to become fluent.  How does this relate to the season of Lent?  I think what God is trying to tell me is this: just like learning the Hebrew language you need to learn my language, how I speak in your life.  And to do that it is going to take practice, patience and effort.  Don’t settle for knowing just enough to get by but instead become fluent in God.

Lent 2- The Forest for the Trees

I love it when God uses seminary ‘assignments’ to become pathways to closer communion with Him.  When doing some assigned reading I came across this:

“it very often happens that the busy and driven parish priest entirely loses sight not merely of his own spiritual position, but also of this great spiritual landscape in which he is placed; by concentrating all the while on those details of it that specially concern him. He cannot see the forest, because he is attending so faithfully to the trees. It is surely a first charge on his devotional life, to recover that sense of the forest, which gives all their meaning to the trees… The primary thing, I believe, that will be of use is a conception, as clear and rich and deep as you are able to get it, first of the Splendour of God; and next of your own souls over against that Splendour of God”.  Evelyn Underhill

The Splendour of God, how much time have I devoted to thinking about God’s Splendour?  Not much.  My devotional life is so myopic that it centers around myself and my family and not much more.  My focus is on the little grove of trees that surround me and doesn’t widen out to the forest except when there is a major event somewhere in the world that catches the media’s attention.  I am reminded of a question that someone asked me once: “If God answered all of your prayers for the last six months in the way that you would like them to be answered, would the world be a different place?”  My answer now is much like it was then, “Not really”.  My family would be happy and healthy but the world wouldn’t be much better off.  It seems that God intends for me to not only be awakened to myself but the world in which He works as well.

Lent 1 – Awake

Here we go, forty days of blogging.

Last year I decided to quit giving up things for Lent.  The idea was that the process of giving things up quickly became more about me than a time of reflection on the meaning and purpose of the actions of Jesus Christ.  It went so well that I have decided to not give something up again.  Instead I will write each day about how God has been making Himself know to me in these forty days of preparation.

In chapel yesterday I was awakened to the truth that I am not really awake.  As I sat in the pew it became clear that I was not fully present in the chapel.  Physically I was attending the service but mentally I was attending to the long list of ‘to dos’ that always accompanies the beginning of the semester: buying books, reading books, writing about the books I read.  For the few short moments that I was actually paying attention I heard over and over again WAKE UP!  I was reminded of Ephesians 5:14-17, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise form the dead, and Christ shall give you light.  Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”  There is so much here that it makes my head hurt but what I haven’t seen in myself as I have been sleepwalking through the last few weeks are 1. Light 2. Attention to how I walk 3. Good use of time 4. the will of the Lord.  None of these are small things to be lacking by the way.  I am anticipating the next 40 days will be a time of awakening for me.  I hope to be awakened to His glory, my faults; His grace, my needs; His love, my response.  This isn’t going to be a painless time but I am praying that the joy outweighs anything else in this season of Lent.

Facebook ate my Blog

It has become increasingly easy to stop thoughtfully writing and just throw a few words together on a Facebook status.  Some might call this efficiency because who really has the time to sit and write a blog post?  Others may call this just being straight up lazy.  I fall in the second category because I am straight up lazy!  However, I am fighting the temptation to quit thinking. 

I have been inspired by the work of some friends who are keeping the blogs alive with thoughtful and lengthy posts.  Most impressive: Brian McCormack’s 40 days of blogs during Lent and Ben Wyman’s epic lists and rankings at TenFourFilms.  Ben has taken over the place of the late, great Laugharn.Info as my one stop site for popular cultural references.  Comparing my lack of production with the volume of posting on those blogs I can’t help but feel a little like a slacker.

Of course I have my excuses like, “I have to many children to blog”, “I have books to read”, or my favorite, “Isn’t there an episode of CSI on somewhere?”  These are somewhat valid… sort of.  But what they really say is I would rather do anything else than sit and think.  All of this has started to become more apparent the longer I have been studying something I thought I knew about.  It turns out there is a lot going on in the Bible that I had no idea about.  What does this have to do with not blogging?  I have been coasting by on knowledge that I acquired about the Bible instead of getting in there and really putting in the effort to keep learning and growing; to think and commit time to contemplation.  I hope a renewed effort to think will lead to some inspiring posts and devotional time that is life changing!