When are ya due?

I stepped on the scale this morning...good grief, something has to change! I'll have to start putting pictures of hamburgers and pizza as the backdrop to our songs if I don't repent here. Sheesh.

Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard...

I grew up in a baptist church (progressive at the time, so not progressive now), gave my life to Christ at the age of 7 (got "saved" as they say) in my home. I don't recall being specifically taught this from the pulpit, but I got a crazy notion in my head that I would actually talk to God, he would talk to me, we would, you know, have a relationship. I couldn't have put those words to it at age seven, but I'm certain now something inside me changed, someone began compelling me to want Him. So, in response, I learned how to do church. That was what you did. Oddly enough, doing church was not modeled in my house, my dad actually related to, talked to, cried to, argued with, God. As I got older and more churchified, I actually thought my dad was a little less spiritual than me, now my own stupidity is much clearer. I really wanted to relate to God, and the church life was not helping. I was slipping into habitual sin and addiction, and powerless to resist. Between the ages of 7 and 22, I got "saved" and baptized four times, because I was convinced I didn't know God. I don't know how much you actually "know" someone as beyond me as God, but one thing was certain, I had no sense of actually relating to Him, so, down the aisle, say the prayer, freakin' freezing cold water, and...same old shit.

I should have walked out on church, but by that time I had started singing and leading worship, and there was something alive in me then that I could not deny, so I stayed. At least for a precious few moments, I found myself doing something that I felt made to do, and the ever elusive God that I said I served seemed so close, at times I know I truly connected.

I still have this crazy notion that God intends for me to relate to Him, that he's after an intimacy that I can't grasp. Only now I'm around pastors who say that it's not just a crazy notion, it's good theology. Great. Thanks. Over the past couple of years I've begun to realize that I feel these promptings, kind of still and quiet like, inside of me. I've grown to believe that it's the life of God in me, relating. I'm sure I don't always hear it well, but it's there. I felt it before, doing the church life, but it seemed to contradict what I was told the Bible said to do. Imagine that.

Why would a poor woman give all she had, (see Mark 12, hear Kyle Sunday), or another lady pour extremely expensive perfume out, (see Matt 26, hear Kyle Sunday), why would they do these extravagant things? I think why they would do this and how I relate to God are connected. What can I give that is of utmost value? What can I break open and pour out on the one who gave all for me? Do I want to do either?

Happy Fatherhood

This morning little warrior started yelling because he was ready to get out of bed. Daddy was not quite ready, so he got to lay there a little longer. Little warrior sounded like he was wrestling with something, but I tried to put my head deeper into the pillow (such a wise daddy). Little warrior let out a battle cry, I got up, stumbled to the room and picked up a smiling, happy boy. "Man, his legs are freezing!" I thought as I laid him on the changing table. I grabbed a diaper and reached to change the "old" one, and...there was no old one! Instead there was a bare butt, that looked like it had been painted brown using a "splatter" technique. Hmm, the legs are also splattered. Hmm, my arm where I carried him is also splattered. Should I look at the crib? Ah, there's the diaper...oh man, this came out of him? Why is he smiling at me like that? Why am I smiling, feeling a strange pride? How many dang wipes is this going to take? Ah, fatherhood.