The Subtle Everyday

In our culture we're concerned with the product.  The end justifies the means.  The way you get somewhere is not as important as the destination.  Sometimes we forget that there is a process at all.

We can sit down, write something, post it and have feedback in half an hour or less.  We can find out what is happening around the world in seconds flat.  We're conditioned for the quick and easy, and my generation has been told we can do anything.

The possible outcome is frustration.  Frustration that we don't have the dream job yet.  Frustration that we don't have the marriage that we always wanted.  We don't have the friendships that we have a deep longing for.

The possible solution is in the subtle everyday.  It is in the small things.  It is in learning how to schedule and be organized even when you aren't very good at it.  It is learning to sit and listen to someone, or take time and work through interpersonal weirdness.  Like I posted last time it may mean slowing down.

Someone whose advice I value highly has said recently, "Where you are going does not matter as much as who you are right now."

Just Slow Down.

Today I slept.  Not in a metaphorical sense where I just zombied through the day.  I took a nap.

I needed it.  I have a drive to check off all the things on my list, and I feel awful if I don't.  The cool thing is, after I had completed most of what I needed to do this morning and I got to the one I hadn't done yet ("prayer") I started to pray, and I might have heard God talk back.  What He might have said was "Go take a nap."

I'm a lot of things right now.  I'm a husband, grad student, student-counselor, worship leader, sometime discussion leader, aspiring writer, friend, son, grandson and great-grandson.  And in the midst of the responsibilities I think I hear God telling me to slow down.  You know, Sabbath.  Rest.  Rest in His love.

Go take a nap.

Moses, Feet, and Dirt

Why did God tell Moses to take his sandals off?  Moses, probably smelling like goats and sweaty from walking up the side of a mountain, was probably pretty curious as to how a bush could stay on fire for so long.  Then God talks to him from the flames.  "Take your shoes off, the ground you're standing on is holy."

I can't remember the cultural specifics about why taking his shoes off is more of a holy thing to do than to leave his shoes on.  I don't usually ask people to take their shoes off, especially when they've been sweating in them all day, because I'm not real interested in smelling the stench.  But God tells him to take his sandals off of his sweaty feet and plant those calloused, smelly soles in the dirt.

Now Moses is standing there in front of this bush that is burning, isn't spreading, and apparently isn't burning up with sweat running down his legs, mixing with the dirt on the ground and this is holy.  Moses smells like goats and unwashed man, has dirty feet, and this is holy.

Maybe when God said "Take your shoes off" He wanted Moses to be a little less clothed.  Not in a weird, eww God has a foot fetish, but in a "Hey, I remember when Adam and Eve walked around naked and weren't ashamed, and that was holy" type of way.  Maybe God was inviting Moses to be known and to be unashamed.

I think I hear those words everyday.  Take your shoes off, be vulnerable with me, this is holy.

Night Time

I had a lengthened thought process over the past two days. 

Scene 1:

My wife and I are sitting outside at Starbucks, drinking the last of a gift card and I was struck by how odd the sun is.  Think about it.  There is a big ball that hangs in the sky and lights up everything it shines on.  No joke.  I'm still not sure I can capture the feeling I had; it was probably closest to "Whoa." 

Fastforward to the next night...

Scene 2:

I'm driving home at about 10:30pm from dropping off my sister Brianna, whose birthday we had just celebrated.  It was dark, and the streetlights were glowing orange along the two-lane highway we call an expressway in the Midwest.  They were just so puny.  They had, compared to that weird ball in the sky, very little to offer, and barely made a dent in the overwhelming lack of light.

So here's what I thought to myself as I listened to my radio and drove through Springfield at almost 11:00pm.

"Humans are a lot like those puny orange lights that are supposed to light the night.  The lights do a pretty good job keeping people from breaking into stuff in the night, from hurting one another, and from being altogether rambunctious.  Humans do a pretty good job constructing systems, laws, and reasons to keep from descending into absolute chaos.  But its nothing like the sun."

I think that maybe when God began to redeem us through Jesus He was saying something like... "Quit building your street lights.  You need to be the Sun."

How to Love

Have you ever wondered how to love?

I mean, actually taken time to think of how what you do and say affect someone else?

I'm pretty convinced that I don't know how to love very well, and I'm okay with that.  I'm okay with that because I know that God has promised to be the strength in my weakness.  And I know he's the best at loving.

Today is one of those perfect spring days, not too cold, not too hot.  There are just the tiny wispy white clouds in the sky, and there are kids playing and laughing outside my window.  I feel loved today.