Isn't God excellent?

     1. God is big. Really big. When I am thanking Him for the beautiful sunshine I am enjoying not only does He see my sunshine but looking at the world He sees the storms and snow, ice and rain, hurricanes and more of every one, of every place in the world.

     2. I want God. I don't want a particular gift. I'm not praying for sunshine. I'm not praying to be kept safe in the dark and ugly days ahead when my spirit is usually heavy. While I am praying for smaller things and for other's needs, my consuming prayer is to be a man of God, God's man. I simply want to know and be known by my God.

     3. I am blessed beyond measure. I am able to replace our rotten bathroom floor with 1-1/8" plywood underlayment given by a friend several years ago and wood floating floor left over from bedroom project.

     4. More blessing. Replaced large front room window of our home today with last of three vinyl windows given us by a neighbor when they remodeled their home. We only need 5 more to finish house. They were also the correct size to replace our wood framed windows. God is good.

     5. And more. A 2005 Mazda was abandon with us several years ago. We licensed and titled it last year, repaired it and drove this weekend for first time. Then someone asked if we had a car for sale and we were able to sell Chris's old car without even putting up for sale. That's at least two blessings there. God is good.

     6. Sitting in the church/school parking lot and a number of young girls with down faces walked past my car going to their bus. Then others with smiles began filing out to cars. The home team won. This reminded me that we win. We are on the winning team. We have reason to smile.

     7. I can't do it by myself. I've done payments on cars many times with very mixed results. Chris asked if we were going to take payments on this sale and I flatly said no. I don't want to deal with that. She felt certain God wanted us to so we did. I pre decided so couldn't hear God but she could. I recognized that I had closed myself off to hearing God in this situation so I gave the decision to someone who could hear God.

     And lastly, all of the above was written on my phone while in my car at the south campus during linc. After writing number 7 I looked back at the church and saw a woman washing the windows of the entrance doors. I felt God telling me to go thank her. I hesitated and He asked again. I jumped out of my car and headed for the doors. She had walked away and I hoped she would be alone. I found her as a man was asking her for a ride to pick up his car. I offered to drive him and he left to get his key. I thanked her for serving us, then she asked if I had a son who just entered high school and described him. She told me stories about my son, then I gave him a ride and arrived back at the church exactly at 8pm to pick up my daughter.

Isn't God's timing excellent?

I hope you simply pull into God.

Please pray for me if you will, to just draw more and more into God.

Whoops! That didn't work.

     This past weekend I staffed at a three day workshop for the heart. It has been over two years since my last staffing experience. After my family this is my favorite place in the world to be. It is such an incredible experience seeing people's lives changed forever. My life is also changed each time.

     Because of our kids and work/school it is very difficult to get away for these long weekends. This created a dilemma for me. I love the high, I love all the new friends or spiritual brothers and sisters, I love the growth in myself, but after the great high comes the great blah. I get new friends but have little time for relationship. I long to do life together. I long to continue what we have begun together. I long for communion. I try to be involved but life steps in over and over and says no.

     I didn't want to go through that up and down emotional beating so I decided to go and help out in any way needed but to not get emotionally involved more than necessary. And it worked. It worked so well that I could only seem to pray out of my head. Like my heart and head were disconnected. It took well into the second day for me to realize that I had done this to myself. I had gotten exactly what I wanted but I didn't really understand what the consequences would be. In retrospect its pretty obvious but all I wanted was to avoid pain down the road. Once I figured it out I began to talk to God about it and He fixed much of it. I began to be able to pray from my heart and open up more. He really is good isn't He?

     The up and down motion of life is I think just a part of how God designed it. I'm so glad God is patient with me. I don't have this all figured out (this life thing) but I do want to share my experience and you can use it however you want. Thanks guys.

   

A couple of thoughts sitting in my folding chair in the back yard.

     Looking at the blackberries coming over the fence next to the pool I know they need to be dealt with now or they will cause a lot of problems for me later. There are things in my life like these vines. If I let them hang around long enough I will pay a price. In life though, I seldom pay that price alone. My wife and kids will pay first. Others who are spiritually healthy miss out on quality community with me. Those who are not spiritually healthy miss out on my encouraging words, speaking and shining truth into their life. Those who don't know Christ miss out on the chance to have that deep longing filled. Everyone around me is robbed. I mostly only see the impact to myself.

     I'm sitting in my folding chair in the back yard seeking time with God that we are sorely lacking. I brought my Bible but I don't want to read. I just want to be close to God. I feel as if there is so much more that I am missing, like there's some super spiritual mystical something that I am not, well I'm not sure how to describe it. Like I should be so much more spiritual than I am. Changing the world every where I go. Then I heard someone coming towards me. When I finally opened my eyes it was the dog. She was sniffing at a pile of dirt near the pool. Smelling some part of the critter who dug up the dirt. I realized she was doing exactly what she was made for. We just took a two night trip all six of us to northern Cali. I did my best to work with my wife to give us and the kids something we would all enjoy. And we did. I did what I was created to do. I often feel as if there is this massive super spiritual something I should be and maybe that will happen one day, though I doubt it will feel like a super spiritual thing then, but for now I am likely exactly where I should be.