About a month ago, my wife turned 30. All year long, college and high school friends have been joining the ranks of the third-decaders.

Well, today’s the day for me! Growing up, I thought, “Dude.. in 2004 I’m gonna be THIRTY!” Back in the 80s, both of those numbers seemed gigantic.

But here we are. 🙂

I don’t really feel THAT old. But I can definitely tell I am. I have a car payment, a mortgage, a job (sort of…) :-), a wife of 7 years, three amazing kids, and even a turtle.

God has definitely blessed me.

So, who knows what the next 30 will look like. At this moment, 60 seems another world away. But I know when I get there, it won’t seem that far.

And the best part is, along the whole thing, my Father loves me and is with me every step.

I am so glad I know that.

At such a young age…. 🙂

You hear the phrase “holiday cheer” and you may see it in tv commercials and various advertisments, but is there such a thing? Do the holidays actually “cheer” people?

I am here to tell you, in Seattle, they do!

I could not believe the friendliness, the cheery dispositions, the general love your neighbor attitude that prevailed today EVERYWHERE we went. And it was a typical (or worse than typical) rainy day in Seattle. It was the day before a holiday, so there were LONG lines and LOTS of people EVERYWHERE.

But everyone was genuinely kind and courteous and almost bubbly with their neighbor!

Now THAT’s holday cheer! 🙂

Don’t get me wrong. I understand that there are many folks who dread the holidays. They are a reminder that while everyone else celebrates with family, they are alone. That is really sad. But I think perhaps it is amplified by the amazing heightened cheer in 95% of the people around them!

So, hope you are getting your fill of holiday cheer. Enjoy your break from work. Have fun with the people God has put in your life, and whose lives you were put into. And be sure to remember that He is the giver of all good things. And He’ll take you through the bad stuff too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Do you know that Christians actually get tired of being Christians?

I don’t mean the simplicity of being a child of God, I mean all of the stuff we do that makes us feel like Christians.

We get up early to have “quiet times”, faithfully reading the same Bible passages we have read many times before, mining for truths that we may not have seen before. We pray harder. We take on more ministry opportunities. We fill our schedule with as much of the programming at our church as we are able. We even help in the nursery at church!! 🙂

Even deeper than that, the constant battle of trying to beat down our sinful nature. To win a battle that is not winnable. To defeat the tendencies we have toward sin, and to always do what is right and righteous.

It is the constant struggle to prove that we are worthy of the Cross. Of God’s unfathomable love.

And that occasionally grows wearisome.

At times, we can sustain it. For a week. For a month. Even the best part of a year. But most of us can not, and so we settle for a guilt-ridden life of not measuring up to God’s standards. We read the law and know that we SHOULD do that… but we can not. And so we end up with frustration after frustration, repentance after repentance… hoping for the goodness of God’s grace to cover our mistakes up to now, and weary from the thought of the next ones to come… perhaps only minutes from your current confession.

Not all Christians live in fear, but I think most do not get to live in the freedom of God’s love. We fight and struggle to do what is right, and we work so hard to spread the good news of Jesus.

Good news? Have you been reading? Does the above sound like good news? Doing a lot of stuff you don’t really want to do all the time, even though you can’t which just leaves you feeling beaten down and worthless untill you come to another confession time and start it all over again. It is all based on a works-oriented, task-driven way of relating to God.

He is after all, God. He calls the shots. He gives and takes away. Who are we to have any say in what we do or don’t do. Christians through the ages have told us what God likes and what he doesn’t, and I have even read it in His word… He like it when we’re good, and doesn’t like it when we’re bad. A bit simple, but isn’t that basically it?

I don’t think so.

We have been reading He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobsen, and I have been really rethinking who God, my Father, is. To be completely honest, there are not many books that make me completely re-think anything. I am a thinker. That’s what I do. I love to think deeply on things. Any things. But especially anything having to do with God. And so, this book has simply amazed me at its simple look at the love that God has for us.

He has taken us through the parable we call the Prodigal Son. He contends that the story is not really about the son, he is only one of two. The story in fact is about a father who loves unabashedly BOTH of his quite different sons. One wild and selfish, the other self-righteous and indignant. Both are loved completely. Then he obviously uses the cross as a picture of God’s love. Which I have known, but he has made me seriously re-think some of the motivations of God for the cross. It was not just to appease his judgment. It was to defeat sin, and its hold on me. To completely defeat sin and death. It was out of love that God himself allowed his life to be taken (no one could take it from him) so that he could defeat death and sin’s hold on us all. He did all of this before we were even born, and before anyone really asked for it. (Ephesians 1 says his plan was formulated before the creation of the world.)

This unstoppable love of the supreme God for me has fascinated me these past few weeks, and especially as we have read through this book. If you do not own a copy, they are available at Amazon.com… please do go buy one or two. I make no money from that, I just want you to read it.

And it has made me wonder why we do what we do. We have some missionary friends who are tired. They have worked so hard and given their all to help people in a foreign land know the Truth, the Way and the Life. But they are tired. Weary.

I know preachers who endure endless meetings, discussions, politics, maneuvering, power struggles, late-nights, and so much more in the name of serving their King, who are fight to keep going just because they don’t know what else to do. People need to know, right?

I know so many in full-time ministry who are empty and dry and wondering if it is worth going on, and if they are not exhibiting that externally, they are battling that internally. And why? Because they are trying to hard to do something for God, instead of letting Him do something in them.

I think the key is we have forgotten who God is. We have “a form of Godliness, but deny its power.” We work so hard because we are pretty sure we have to keep up our end of the bargain, and in doing so, we often miss the real ministry that God has placed right in front of us.

That might be our family. That might be our neighbors. That might be someone we happen to meet in the parking lot of our local grocer. Whomever that might be, we are so busy building up our kindgoms (our churches) that we often miss The Kingdom happening right around us. There are so many details to manage, so many people to care for, and so few to do the things that need to be done, so we have to recruit more. It is an endless process.

And God did not call us in Scripture to any of it.

What did Jesus say was the greatest commandment? The thing he MOST wants us to do? He quoted Deuteronomy where it says we should “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength. The second is just like it, love your neighbor as yourself.” That’s it. We have no commands to create elaborate structures by which we may hopefully communicate the teachings of Jesus to many people in our local area. We are just told to love them. That’s it.

Love is a crazy english word. We say it is a choice. Has nothing to do with emotions. The Love of God (agape, in greek) is a concious choice to do what is in the best interest of the one being loved. Sounds great, eh? NO! That is not what made God hang on a cross. That is not the love of the father in the Incredible Father story… that is heartless and calculated obligatory love. That is not the love God has for us, and not how he wants us to love him or our neighbor.

He wants us to long to be with him. To relish the thought of helping out a friend or neighbor. To bubble with joy at the opportunity to share what God has given you, just because He has.

That’s not always easy, but it’s easier when we are not tired from trying so hard. It’s easier when we get up in the morning and follow God’s plan for us, instead of our own agenda.

I probably have lost a lot of you by now. I am sorry for that. I don’t mean to. Nor do I mean to in any way condemn anyone who is reading this for not doing anything I have mentioned the “right” way.

I do think we are missing out on the fullness of life in Jesus (he said he came that we might have life to the full – John 10:10) and mostly that is because we are trying so hard to attain it. Instead of resting in the fact that He has already given it to us, we just need to live it with Him.

I intend to re-read the whole Bible over the next while, reading it with eyes open to God’s incredible love for me. The love that says I am his child, not just a subject in his Kingdom. The love that says I am his bride, and he is the groom. The love that says he sings over me. I will definitely be posting thoughts along the way as I do.

I hope you know his love for you. Rom 8:31 says if God is for us, who (or what) can be against us. That question is posed because the first part is so unmistakeably true. God IS for us.

Max Lucado played with the phrase once. Say it with the inflection on all the different words. They are all true. And they all hold a different and amazing meaning.

GOD is for us. The almighty. Creator of heaven and earth. HE is for us.

God IS for us. Today. Not once, a long time ago. Not just when he died on the cross. Not just when we were good. He IS for us… now.

God is FOR us. He loves us. He is on our side. He is cheering us on, picking us up, constantly warmed by the thought of YOU.

God is for US. You and me. Not the special people. Not the “saints”. Not the ones who love him the best. He is for US. All the time. Forever.

That is amazing.

I pray, as Paul did, that “out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Eph 3:16-19

Know, as I am learning, that you are so incredibly loved. As you are. Forever.

That is our purpose for being. To share in that love. THAT… is our mission.

I really do enjoy what I do. I love to put together sets of music that will lead people’s hearts and minds to the love of their Father. I love to create things with words, with graphics, and then to translate to a page on the internet viewable by you. I love all of that.

But none of that matters one bit when my family needs me. None.

This week, I am able to have an office at the church we are serving with this weekend. There is an open room, and a connection to the internet, so… I am set. I have not been able to have much time away from the family (or our host family) where I can just concentrate on work. Partly because of our location, and partly because Jen has been out of commission for quite sometime, so I have had double and triple duty.

Well, today I was able to get away and hopefully get some work done, as Jen has been feeling much better, and, I am just across the street (that helps too!) 🙂 I arranged with Jen that when she was ready to go do some errands we need to do, that she should come and get me. Well, when Jen came to get me, she looked and sounded fried.

She said she did not need any help, and she was just going to go back and lay everyone down for a nap, so… I let her go.

But, I know how that goes.. 🙂

So I wrapped up what I was doing, and headed over, and sure enough, all was not going as planned. So, I helped Kirstie go to sleep, and hopefully relieved Jen a bit.

I need to work. I am responsible to lots of people. Including my family, as “the breadwinner”. But, in most instances… I don’t really care about bread, as I know that is REALLY my Father’s job. He gives us “our daily bread”. Still, the tension between caring for my family and working to provide for them is … interesting.

But when it comes down to it, I could not sit over here and just “hope” all was well across the way. The most important thing to me is my family. I love them more than I can say. Especially Jen. So all of this other stuff that I enjoy so much, pales in comparison to my relationship with them.

And I think that’s the way it should be. I think that we were made for relationship, not tasks. Those words may have just hurt you if you prefer task-oriented life style. But, I must say, though tasks are necessary, they are definitely secondary to relationships.

I think Jesus showed this with the Mary and Martha episode, where Mary just wanted to know Jesus more and Martha wanted to serve him more. “Mary has chosen what is better,” Jesus said. And we say all the time that we were created for relationship with God.

It can be so hard to forget. But I hope today you get a chance to think about the folks God has put in your life. And as you think about them, that you get a chance to spend some time with them. And as you do that, you would be reminded powerfully what really matters in life. Really.

We listened today to a major portion of an audio book received last week from our friends in Elk Grove. It is by a man named Wayne Jacobsen, who just has a really cool view on life in the Kingdom. I believe you can get all his books at amazon.com, or check his blog page, linked here on mine (down to the right a bit…)

Something he said in Chapter 5 really caught my ear tonight, and I wanted to share it with you before I went to bed…

“You’ll trust Him only to the degree that you are certain of His love for you.”

That is SO TRUE. The root of our faith, of our trust in our Father is understanding how high and deep and long and wide is the love of Jesus for us. He loves us not based on what we do for him, or if we continue in that, but only because we are his. He made us, and wants so badly to have a relationship with us, that he gave his life to prove it.

When we let that sink in, we can really begin to trust him, eh? If God had lots of requirements on us before we can hang out with him, or even before he was hung on a cross to die… it would be a bit harder to trust him. If he was a big scary unpredictably vengeful God… he’d be harder to trust.

But Paul said we have been given a spirit by which we call him Abba, Father. And Jesus compared us to God’s children, whom He loves to please…

It’s not all about life on easy street for us… it’s all about life in the full assurance that we are accepted and loved by our Creator, who thought we were worth suffering an agonizing death on a cross.

Once we are confident in his love, we can really trust him. When we really trust him, we see him work in our lives and we love him more. Which leads to deeper trust… which leads to more relationship, which leads to more love…

You get the point.

I thought that was quite insightful. More from the book later…

(I need to sleep! 761.1 miles kinda drains ya! It was exactly 16 hours in the van today!)

Mt. Shasta – Mt. Shasta, CA

Today was our second longest day of driving (that I can remember). We drove 761.1 miles. That’s a lot. A whole lot. But we got to see LOTS of amazing stuff along the way.

One thing we greatly anticipated on today’s trip was the drive past Mt. Shasta. As you can see above, it is an impressive sight!

Well, we were still TWO HUNDRED miles away, but we saw this cool-looking snow-capped mountain in the distance in the direction that Mt Shasta would be… and we got excited! “Could that be it???” I couldn’t really believe we could see it from so far away! It did look kinda small, but I figured that’s cause of the distance.

So for 20-30 miles, we drove, in complete awe of this mountain that we could see so well from 200 miles away! We drove 50 miles, and it kept getting closer. And I became more and more convinced that it was Mt. Shasta.

Until I saw it.

On the horizon, blurred by distance and its height reduced significantly by the curvature of the earth, was an ENORMOUS white mountain!!! THAT was the real Mt. Shasta.

And then I felt silly. I looked at what I thought had been Mt. Shasta, and then at the real thing, and I couldn’t believe I had ever accepted the imposter as the real thing!!!

And that made me think. Don’t we do that all the time with sin? Don’t we size up our sin, convincing ourselves that it is indeed the real thing? Even though we know our Father has something far better for us in mind? We convince ourselves that the puny imitation we see is really the majestic genuine article we actually want.

But it’s not.

One of Satan’s grand schemes is to get us to accept a counterfeit. Often, the sins that most entangle us appear to be the thing we most need. Or, if we notice it’s not quite right, we convince ourselves that it is the thing we need. But then if it is placed next to the real deal, it seems so small and worthless in comparison.

Mt. Shasta is an amazing piece of God’s handiwork. Really. If you’ve never seen it, the above picture just can’t capture the jaw-dropping hugeness of this big piece of rock! It’s incredible.

And to think I was willing to accept a little ant hill in comparison! 🙂

God reminded me today to watch out for counterfeits in my life. To always keep my eyes open for the real deal. It is so much more amazing. Boy, is that true!!!

This week was a gift from God – at just the time we needed it, so I thought I would share some of the stuff that happened on this brief respite.

• We played games! Our family loves board games and card games. So this week we played lots of Uno and other games little boys like to play. Alex at 3 is actually quite good, though his attention remains for only about 1 hand… 🙂
• We drove up a mountain! We found a Wal*Mart within 20 miles of here, so we ventured out having absolutely no idea what lie ahead of us. 🙂 We climbed from an elevation of 6000 ft to over NINE thousand and back down below that within that 20 miles! It was a crazy ride! The boys loved it!

  

• We are amazed at God’s beautiful creation! From the lake views to the already mentioned mountain vistas to even the much smaller intricacies of a clementine. (A tiny orange) 🙂 The former were overwhelming in size and beauty. The latter was incredible in its design and in the fact that it was made just for us.

  The slices contain seeds which are needed to make more, which evolution supposes are there because of nature’s innate desire to continue itself… BUT, what are the little juice sacs for?? How does the acidic citric acid benefit the seed or the orange plant? I don’t think they do. I just had a cool moment of thinking, “This is for ME! He made this for ME.” That was another awesome reminder of how much God cares for us.

• We got to be a family. This one was invaluable as we are grieving the loss of a family member. We have been so supported by our Father, and by his people, and by our family here. But there are still moments when sadness comes to the forefront. It is usually quickly replaced by the deep comfort that we have in trusting our Father. But it has also just been good to spend time together as a family.
• We have great friends. We have great friends not only at home, but all across the country. It has been amazing. But especially this week, when it was greatly needed. When we were dealing with a super hard loss in our lives, our friends supported us completely. They kept our kids, they grieved with us, the just helped us to feel comfortable and not notice how far we were from home. Then they joined us for our last day here on vacation, and again, it was so great to share some more life together. We talk about the simple, everyday stuff. We talk about the deeper stuff of life. We help each other in any way needed at the time. We had everything in common (food, diapers, etc) and no one was in need. HEY! That sounds familiar…. (Acts 2 and 4) 🙂

  So, we have great friends. 🙂

It’s been a great week. Tomorrow we embark on one of our longest trips, from Incline Village, NV to Vernonia, OR. (See the Yahoo! Maps directions here! Nice! 🙂

For a quick slideshow experience of our week… click here.

For some reason, lots of us expect something out of life. More than something, we expect a lot. There is a whole list of things that we think we deserve. That life somehow owes us.

That, my friends, is faulty thinking.

Life is not fair. I am not even thirty, and I have definitely learned that. At times it gives the appearance that it is fair, but alas, it is only an illusion.

I was watching a special on PBS about the evil empire of Wal*Mart. The show revealed how the company’s tactics created such a large retail force that now instead of the manufacturers dictating the cost and volume of a product, the retailers (and the consumers) are now in the driver’s seat. That is a role reversal that has caused a chain reaction in a lot of areas, including the loss of manufacturing jobs here in the US.

I do not wish to debate (at this point) the level of humane conditions for workers, or any of the government subsidizing or other props that create the lower cost of business on foreign soil… that may or may not be true. Again, life is not fair. What I want to focus on is the general attitude of the worker who lost his job, and the larger picture of a prevailing attitude of entitlement.

The man who was being interviewed had just lost his job that he had held for about 30 years in a local TV manufacturing plant. Companies like Wal*Mart are purchasing completed products from other countries (rather than importing materials to assemble here) at such a low price that they making it impossible for companies to compete if they manufacture in the United States. This man was almost whining as he spoke of the woes of his current state of living. No job, no benefits, prospects were bleak of getting another job with the same pay and benefits.

Did you catch that? He didn’t think prospects were bleak for another job. He didn’t think he was going to die of starvation or have to mortgage everything he had just to “make ends meet”. He wanted the same pay and benefits. It’s not FAIR for Wal*Mart to come in here and take away his life. “I DON’T WANT TO CHANGE!!!!”

That’s it right there. We are so sure that we are owed whatever list of things we might hold to… a job, a house, a spouse, a family, a child, benefits, a car, TWO cars, high-speed internet (well, now, we MIGHT be entitled to THAT…). The list goes on and on. Life owes us.

But it doesn’t.

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Jesus asks us. And in another story, God tells a man who was making big plans for his wealth that he’s just foolish, cause he was so concerned about that, and he was about to die… and not get any of it.

We NEVER know what life is going to bring us. We may lose our job and have to completely change a lifestyle. We may lose our house or a car or everything we own… none of it is permanent. (No matter how much we may convince ourselves otherwise.)

We may lose a child.

Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Nothing is, except the One who never changes. It says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. [Heb 13:8] And it also says that his love will never change (for us) [Rom 8:38-39] and that he will never leave us. [Matt 28:20]

Life is not fair. It’s not “fair” that we lost our baby. It’s not fair that the health insurance people didn’t want to cover us (though that did work out nicely). It’s not fair when people lose their jobs and have to start over again. Life is just not fair.

But we are loved. And He is God.

Knowing that makes life a lot better.

Recently I have been pondering the vast army of people God created just for heaven. Many are there by His choice only. They were greatly desired here, but never made it to their parents’ arms. Some did, but only for a very short time. We have some friends who only got to spend a few hours with their first baby. So many children of God who did not experience life on this fallen planet.

Millions more are there by our choice, and his grace. Abortion has claimed so many lives. But, they go mostly unnoticed since we can somehow overlook the value of lives that we can’t really see by calling them a choice.

But I have a new perspective on this.

We have a child who is, we believe, with Jesus as one of the “unborn”.

And I wonder if God tolerates our incredible insanity where we willingly and purposefully choose to kill our own children, because he is building an army of the unborn. His children (they are, after all, not even really ours…) who never have to experience the hurts of this life. The loneliness. The rejection. The pain. The doubt.

God uses all of those things to sharpen us…. to lead us to a deeper trust in him… but, they are only part of a fallen world. They will not exist in the new one. In heaven.

So, in a way, I almost feel a strange pride in the fact that one of our family got to be part of that enormous group of people whom God created JUST for heaven.

Awesome.

Just a thought for the day, as we continue to process the events of the past week.

I look forward to the day we meet our child, and the countless others God gave the privilege of living at only one address for their entire existence…

Home.