Best day of my life.

I should mark November 8, 2009 on my calendar somehow. For some reason, even though it was an ordinary day and in fact was filled with hard work (clearing my lawn and gutters of leaves), for some reason, my sense of God’s blessing in my life was more intense than I think I may have ever experienced. In fact, it might have been the happiest day of my life. Despite the greater than normal need for Ibuprofen (I had a LOT of leaves to clear) and the fact that I didn’t really get to watch any football.

 

No real reason for it really, I do have a great life, a great job, a fantastic family, and I got some really great help on my lawn from somebody really special. And I was just, for no real reason I can point to, so acutely aware that God was blessing me and pouring it on… It was amazing.

 

I hope you have a day like this soon!

A little time off…

You all should take a break sometimes… I took a few days off, they ended up being, frankly, kinda difficult. (Stuff I can’t discuss on a blog.)

But it was still good to take some time off, and it was needed. Even if there’s not a lot of “good stuff at times like this, the time that you take a break is still a good idea.

Sometimes, you are recovering (I hope) even when it feels like you are only treading water. Sometimes, your body, mind and spirit are getting a needed diversion from your normal life even when you feel like you’d rather have a “diversion from the diversion”.

I do honestly wonder if Jesus took time off sometimes that felt less than restful or less than ideal…

Something totally FREE and totally priceless!

I experienced, not once but twice in the past couple weeks, a well-timed and well-placed genuine encouragement. Both came from people I treasure greatly, and when somebody finds something about you that’s cool and shares it with you, boy oh boy, it can fill your tank for a long long time.

I hope you find somebody this week who you appreciate… that you can tell them why you love them. It’s totally free energy! It costs nothing and makes you, them, and the whole world a better place.

Thanks!

What a day. What an opportunity. I live in a country where I can say pretty much what I want, pray and worship how I want to, have the friends I want… etc…

Not everybody does.

I have a job where I love what I do, love who I do it with, and most days can’t wait to get there and don’t want to leave.

Not everybody does.

I have a family that is filled with love and the best kind of chaos, and we’ll be having a big huge thanksgiving turkey dinner today after watching some football and relaxing in a great home.

Not everybody does.

I don’t know what I did to deserve this. But Thank You God!

Feels like heaven

So, yesterday I did something I almost never do, I went to church. I didn’t unlock the building for anybody, help set up anything, play, or even do announcements. My wife and I just showed up for the early Sunday service, and then when it was over we went home. I rarely get a day off… it’s weird… But it felt good to be in a room full of people loving and seeking God and loving each other and loving their neighbors.

Then last night we had our yearly volunteer appreciation dinner, and for our normal “musical” segment of the program, which is usually a silly song that the pastors sing together, we actually had all of us on-stage as a worship band, guitars, bass, drums, singing, the whole schmiel… We led worship for a short worship set and then played a silly parody version of “Put a little Love In Your Heart” that was so much fun.

What was cool was, that song’s new lyrics (written brilliantly by our own Senior Pastor) was about “being the church” and showing God’s love to the world. We were singing it to a room filled with people who are really great at showing God’s love, and the feeling of singing those worship songs with them and singing that appreciation song to them was overwhelming.

It felt like what heaven will be like, the family of God loving on each other.

Train up a child…

I come from a family of 8 kids (yes 8!) My oldest sister emailed me wondering what it was that our parents did to raise us to want to serve God in ministry the way so many of us do. I’m in full-time ministry, she is very involved in leading her local church, my oldest brother is in his second year of seminary, my other sister is deeply involved in communications and other areas at her church, a younger brother is in part-time Music Ministry, and has been involved with youth in the past, another younger brother is active in his church’s music program, and the other older brother is married to a pastoral counselor.

Here’s what my sister thinks my parents did. I agree, so I’m basically passing her thoughts along. (From here on they are her words unless in italics.)

- They instilled in us an active sense of wonder. Mom saw God in everything, and Jesus in everyone, and taught us to do the same. That has stayed with me throughout my life, even though the world sees it as foolish.

- They modeled for us church involvement and leadership at a very deep level, despite our frequent moves and changes of parish.  Mom was always president of the women’s program, Dad was always in choir, and leading worship, either as a lector or cantor.  My image of him singing the Exultat in a half dozen churches is strong. (Dad remains more active in his church than most people I know life at 79 years young.)

- They were generous with love, forgiveness, and support and stingy with punishment and criticism.  I can’t say they were stingy with non-support, because they never failed, and still don’t fail, to support us.  That modeled God’s love for us, as critical, difficult parenting seems sometimes to stifle it.

- They taught us spiritual practice and spiritual discipline early. We all remember praying together as a family at a very young age, we had special disciplines for lent, like fasting and abstinence… Mom and Dad were always very serious about their prayer life and thought we should be, too.

- They treated church like an extension of home.  We were as at home in the social hall of any church we belonged to as we were in our own homes.

- They brought us to Worship, Fellowship, and Education on a weekly basis. They helped us engage mind, heart and soul in God from the very beginning.

Most of us are very different in our expression of the Christian faith now, in fact, almost the whole gamut of Christian expression can be found in my family, from very conservative to very liberal, from high church to low church (I’m definitely the low church one these days, although I appreciate high church very much). But still, faith was never something separate from life… Faith WAS and IS life to them. I’m grateful for that.

Right priorities, right attitude

I’m just reading in the paper about the induction into the Football Hall of Fame of two of my favorite all-time Redskins, Art Monk and Darrell Green. What a couple of class acts. Darrell Green is maybe my all-time favorite sports figure. He was great for a long long time, and is a great father and great guy, too. He was talking about how he almost named his son Darrell Green Jr., but changed his mind just before he was born. Green says his son is “his own man”, and then he said the kind of thing that all sons should get to hear their father say. He said “I’m more proud of my son being my son than I am being in the Hall of Fame.” Wow. Fathers… let your kids catch you saying how proud you are of them some time! (Mothers, you can do that, too…)

RIGHT NOW!

I was reminded in a really nice song this morning to “Breathe it in and breathe it out, Listen to your heartbeat, there’s a wonder in the here and now, It’s right there in front of you, And I don’t want you to miss, The miracle of the moment.” Do something special, just something little, with someone you love today!

Thankful

I get to preach this coming weekend… about Communion and Thanksgiving and how they’re connected and what the idea of Eucharist means to the church, what it meant to the early church, and what it’s supposed to do to us.

I’m thankful for so much today. I’m thankful for some gorgeous weather, for my family, especially my wife, for food in my belly, and gas in my tank… And I’m thankful for coffee (REALLY thankful for coffee…). But what I’m most thankful for today is that being thankful means I can do something for someone else, to pass it on, to “pay it forward”… and make someone else thankful by what God gives me to do.

Do something for someone today… Make them thankful!

Keep meeting together… for the fellowship AND the food!

Hebrews tells us to keep meeting together and not be “Lone Ranger” Christ-followers. Actually, I think most of the New Testament does. Actually, now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure the whole Bible tells us this.

But recently I’ve interacted with a small handful of individuals who are trying to be Lone Rangers. I’ve exhorted them that this doesn’t work. I know, I tried it for a while years ago.

There’s a few things scary about this kind of Christ-following life. First, you miss out on some essential fellowship (which includes some great food… not an unimportant thing it seems, in light of Scripture). Second, you get “dull” because now iron isn’t sharpening iron. Oh, you can get all your doctrinal and biblical ducks in a row from books and TV and radio preaching perhaps, but your LIFE isn’t being sharpened. Third, okay, this one isn’t so spiritual and maybe it’s even selfish, but it’s just way more fun to do life in community.

Share some time with some people this week… just to do LIFE together… And have some food, too!

And if you could share your stories and insights, that would be great. I have a message that I’m preparing for later this year on community… I’d love to even write it in community!