No waiting just starting.

I was in a small group setting recently and a friend of mine brought up an interesting question.  Challenging really.  He asked why we don’t have November resolutions or December resolutions?  Why does it always have to be a New Years resolution?  Good question.

I like to start over.  There is a freshness about it.  I think about having “do overs” in kickball at school.  Great feeling.  Why do we have to wait?  We can start over today!  We don’t have to wait until Monday, or the beginning of the month, or the beginning of the year.  We can begin now.

That is what I am doing.  Starting my commitment to blogging now.  Ta dah!

Uncertain

I don’t think anyone likes uncertainty.  Uncertainty makes me do desperate things at times.  Maybe it does for you to.  Even hanging out with God and trying to follow Him still brings a lot of uncertainty and makes me uneasy at times.  I have to confess I get a little nervous.  Regardless of how I feel, I know it doesn’t change God, how He sees me or how He feels about me.  Sometimes it is hard to view our life through our eyes and what is ahead when we just can’t see.

Life is a little uncertain for me.  I am looking for a job at a truly terrible time to be doing so.  Because of all my past, my experience has been people in the “church world” are a little hesitant to consider me, not to mention a lot of churches are really hurting right now financially.  

To quote the infamous Napoleon Dynamite, “Girls want guys with skills…nunchuck skills, bo skills…”, and companies want people with skills and sometimes it feels like I don’t have any to offer.  I am not a six sigma black belt, IT specialist, certified human resources person, a medical worker, or an accountant.  My leg is somewhat still in the rehab stage, so running around in “brown” assisting the UPS driver isn’t an option either.

Uncertain.  I am CERTAIN I am not the only one to deal with it.  I just wish it would pass.  Looking at a flat line on the horizon with nothing in site is…well…you can imagine.

No Boot

The past few weeks have been a great challenge.  I should have been writing about it all along and not leave such a huge gap in my blog spot, however, I have an excuse.

I broke my leg (fibula to be exact) while coaching an 8 year old football team.  I have been constantly reminding by my loving colleagues that these are things that happen to us while we are young and are to be avoided in mature adult life.  I never said I was a mature adult.

I broke it and for the past 6-7 weeks I have been in this boot.  It is big and black and doesn’t fit under pants very well…or at all for the most part except tear away basketball pants or my levi cargo work pants.  It has been quite a difficult task to move about.  Possibly the most frustrating and ironic event surrounding the break is I had purchased a new mode of transportation just that afternoon and couldn’t drive until recently.  It was like looking at your present at Christmas for 6 weeks and not being able to open it or worse…watch everyone else play with it!

Now, after much lingering and moaning, the boot is off.  Some strange things have happened.  My calf muscle has shrunk and looks rather frail.  I did not know that learning to walk again would be such a challenge.  My leg and foot muscles feel so tight.  

Sometimes when God needs your attention…He has to slow you down.

ps…don’t blame God for my broken leg, I was the crazy man doing tackling drills with an 8 year old cornerback.

Parking Habits

I have a friend that works at the church where I go.  The church is rather large (several thousand people).  He works in the security department.  As you can imagine, his stories make me laugh a lot.  Most of the stories he has to share are about people’s parking habits.

As you drive on to the church campus on Sunday mornings, you can imagine the number of cars.  There are a lot of cars.  The great thing about the parking is regardless of where you have to park, a trolley will come by and pick you up at “trolley stations”.  Before I continue, let me say there is enough parking for everyone.

Despite all the services the church seems to offer, and all the parking places available, some people just aren’t satisfied.  The obviously feel “special” and take their parking situation in to their own hands.  Back to coming on to the campus…

As you drive on to the campus, you will see people parked everywhere…on red curb areas, they jump curbs and park on grass lawns, medians, handicapped spots, reserved areas, you name it.  My friends job is to make sure people don’t do that and he places “reminder” tickets on their window asking them not to park there again.  It isn’t the church is being a jerk about it, it’s just they have gone to great extent to provide more than adequate services to transport people and the excluded areas are for safety issues and help the flow of traffic.

My friend has this one girl who has some severe entitlement issues.  She parks all over the place.  He has put several reminders on her car but it really doesn’t help.  One day he even waited and confronted her.  Imagine that…having to be confronted about parking at church.  Finally he put a parking “boot” on her car so she couldn’t park and leave. 

What do our parking habits say about us?  Our driving habits?  We break speed limits, park in designated no parking areas, whip in spots to beat other people, drive on the shoulder when there is no median.  Aren’t those laws and guidelines there for a reason and we simply ignore them.  For some reason, we just don’t think they apply to us.  We are special, exempt, and declare immunity.  It’s called entitlement.

I think we relate to God that way.  He has some guidelines and laws in place to live by, and well…we just don’t think He meant those for us.  We are exempt, special, immune.  What we don’t want to grasp is that God isn’t a killjoy.  Actually the opposite.  He wants to give life and help us experience it to the best possible.  So why don’t we listen?  We deserve more.

Question #2: Who told you you were naked?

To be honest, when I think about naked, a lot of thoughts come to my mind.  Yes, some might not be so good, but there are feelings associated with being naked.  Sometimes we might feel embarrassed or ashamed.  I personally think nakedness can be rather funny and humorous.  Seeing someone run with clothes on and running naked is two totally different experiences.  One is much more humorous than the other.

Where did we get these ideas and thoughts about naked?  Well, that God’s second question.

After Adam and Eve went and hid, God asked them another unique and strange question.  “Who told you you were naked”?  I can’t help but think that is a strange question.  Adam and Eve had been naked their entire existance.  It was an everyday occurance and a constant state of being.  Naked.  When I think of living naked all the time, I can visualize how that would present a lot of problems, but hey…in a perfect environment like Eden…maybe not.  Why did God ask them that?  He already knew they were naked.

The story doesn’t say, but for the sake of trying to speculate, let’s see if any of this fits.

1.  God wanted them to understand that this need to hide, the shame, and the desire to cover up didn’t come from Him.  God asked them WHO told you.  God is saying, “Look, I don’t know who you have been listening to that gave you this idea of naked being bad, but it wasn’t me”.

2.  Maybe God is posing another question to say, “What are you calling bad what I called good”?  Remember they had been naked their whole life!  How often do we call good what God has said isn’t so hot?

3.  It doesn’t mean that we should go naked now.  I know…you are all just chompin to go streakin down your local strip and blame God when they throw you in jail.

We live in a confused world.  We seem to chase after things that we discover are only illusions or temporary at best.  Searching and seeking, never quite satisfied, and the more we seem to have, the more we think other people want it and we look over our shoulder because we can’t trust anyone but us.  Well…Adam and Eve had it all.

Questions Post #1

Maybe I am a little off the chart, but I have noticed lately that God is quite curious.  Before you rant and rave and make all kinds of ugly remarks, I know He isn’t curious or needs to know anything.  BUT for someone who does know everything He sure asks a lot of questions.

So I have set out on my journey to discover all the questions God asks.  I am just curious as to why He asks them.  I have a couple of thoughts, but we will see if it holds to be true.

To begin with, I think God asks questions to reveal something to us about Him.  If indeed God does know everything, there has to be something else.  He isn’t like your kids in the back seat yelling “Are we there yet?” on your way to Disney.  He knows, so He has to be wanting to communicate something.  On the other hand, He could be asking questions to show us something about us.

In the first book of the Bible, God doesn’t ask any questions for a while, but He does say a lot of stuff.  In chapter 3 after the infamous fruit shop lifting incident, He asks out loud “Where are you?”.  I am of the opinion that God knows, so what is up with the question.  It reminds me of playing hide and seek with my parents as a kid.  Most of the time they knew where I was, but they would just let me stay there…seemingly not knowing.  They knew all along.  God had to know.

As I think about why He would ask this question a few thoughts come to mind:

1.  God wanted to know that He wasn’t abandoning them but really wanted to be where they were.

God was pursuing them.  That is a challenging thought sometimes when we know all our stuff and to think that God pursues us and is wanting us to come freely out of the shadows.  He pursues and He knows. 

2.  God is the beginner of relationship.  Even when we hide, God initiates the search and rescue process.  I used to think that God is waiting passively for me to do something.  I don’t think that is the case.  They hid and He asked the question.

Some of you would like for me to write a number 3, but I don’t think there is one and I am not into alliterating or pastoral symatry.  

Sometimes I still hide like a little kid just hoping that He will keep walking by and not noticing where I am or what I am doing.  I know that isn’t true, but I try to find comfort from the embarrassment of being caught or exposed naked (that is for the next post).

I guess I can come out from behind the couch now.