Anna in her Chinese dress... stay tuned after the post to see Anna's newest thing: sculpting ducks!


Sleepy

Every now and again the kids go through a phase where one or both of them doesn’t want to take their nap. The phase usually begins with short or interrupted naps. It helps the kids’ case if we have some special day where finding time and place for a nap is out of the question. They’ll thrive right through that naptime as if to say, “See, I’m too big for naps…” But just wait until right before dinnertime when the meltdown begins! Sometimes they whine a little when we tell them, “Okay, go pick a book so that we can read it for your naptime.” Anna will say, “I don’t need a nap. I’m so awake and I just want to play.” The funny thing about those days is that as soon as she lies down, she’s out for the count for hours on end.

Here’s the thing… why does Anna need a nap? Why do we sleep? I mean, isn’t it weird as heck that you have gone completely unconscious for hours at a time every single day of your whole life? Can you imagine how much more productive we could be if we didn’t have to spend eight hours out of every day completely motionless with our eyes closed? What’s really weird though is this: Scientists have no idea why we sleep. I’m serious. Many theories abound, but when it comes down to it, no one really knows what sleep is all about and no one has a clue what dreams accomplish.

Back in the day researchers assumed that wakefulness was the natural state of the brain and that sleep gave the brain an opportunity to shut down. Now we know this to be untrue. The fact is, the brain is active whether we are asleep or awake. Most people believe that sleep is about rebuilding and restoring. The idea is that during the day we break down our body and deplete our stores of energy both physical and cognitive, and we need sleep to recharge. That may explain why growth hormone is secreted during sleep. Maybe the best clues to unlocking the mystery of sleep lie in what happens when we don’t get enough… we become irritable, uncoordinated and more prone to errors. We lose our creative edge and sharpness.

Some think sleep and dreaming are a way to process our problems… the idea there is that as we face difficult, demanding, confusing or emotionally taxing situations, our brain heats up. These folks believe that sleep and dreams allow us to cool off and decompress from the pressures of living. These are all great theories, but no one is totally sure exactly why we sleep. There are only two things I know for sure about sleep. One is this: I need it… everyday. I need to stop. I need to check out. I need to cool down, rebuild, restore and whatever else there may be. I simply have to take some time out of everyday, lie down, close my eyes and stop thinking.

The other thing I know for sure about sleep is this: God doesn’t need to. Psalm 121 says, “He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” He doesn’t need to chill out. He doesn’t need to rebuild His energy supplies. He doesn’t have to take some time to decompress from the problems and pressures of the day. He doesn’t get grumpy, He doesn’t make errors and He doesn’t lose His edge. Whatever the reason for sleep, it must lie somewhere in our overwhelming weakness, but this is for sure: God doesn’t need to. He’s not weak and He’s not sleepy.


Anna's Ducks:
Okay, so Anna started sculpting ducks with play doh which is pretty cool and all... I mean, they're good ducks, but then I noticed that there was more going on than meets the eye...


Look at the pictures and you'll see a mommy duck with a couple of baby ducks. She always makes them a family like that. Now look in the back, behind the ducks. I asked her what that was and she said it's a nest with the eggs for the next baby ducks who haven't yet hatched. See, she makes the mom, then she makes the nest and the eggs. Then, when it's time for the babies to "hatch," she takes each egg and makes the next baby duck. As in, both of those baby ducks were little play doh eggs a few seconds ago... I thought that was really cool.

Norah smiling through some two-year-old tears...


Sunday Morning

Do you ever remember being a kid and feeling like there were just some things you could always count on? I know for me those were things like always getting homework on long weekends, always being able to watch four episodes of Saved By the Bell after school everyday and always knowing that Dad was going to be up in the kitchen making breakfast every single morning before school… (which carried with it the bonus of knowing that on Friday we were most likely having grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast)

One of the clearest memories that I was always able to bank on was knowing that every Sunday morning I was going to sing Just As I Am at church at the close of the service when the invitation was given… We all knew it was coming, and some people even bothered to open their hymnals to that trusty ole page as if they didn’t have it memorized. It was about the closest we ever got to any kind of liturgy in the Baptist Church, and even though we all knew it was coming, I loved it. I loved hearing and singing that song because I liked the way it felt to be in church and feel accepted by Jesus just the way I was. I remember liking that Sunday morning feeling even as a really little dude standing in my pew holding that hymnal I didn’t need.

One of my favorite songs is called Sunday Morning by Sandra McCracken. It’s about a person who is utterly shocked to discover that the love of God comes all the way down into the dust and mess of our darkest moments and cleanses us, making us clean and making us feel clean. She says,

You were the first and You’ll be the last
And like cloud on the Chicago skyline, these things are past,
Just as I am You rush in without a warning,
I didn’t think that you would really want to come to this place,
And make it feel like Sunday Morning,
You make it feel like Sunday morning

One of the reasons that I love to come together with brothers and sisters to worship is to remember that because of the blood of Jesus, we are clean and forgiven… That God accepts us and loves us just as we are and that He has declared us righteous in Christ, just as righteous as Christ. That’s why we sing the songs we do… to remember that He loves us and that He paid so that we could be clean and brand new and so that we could feel clean and brand new. After King David's really big screw-up he says in Psalm 51, “Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones you have crushed rejoice.” I have always loved the way it feels on Sunday morning because I know I’ll feel new and accepted again… “O Lamb of God I come, I come.”


So, this past weekend was our annual High School Spring Retreat with special guest stars Graham and Emily Murray. Graham brought an awesome message about the importance of weakness which was good because the only two eighth graders who went to the weekend dominated the tournament we created around this ridiculous bean-bag game...

Here's a video:

It Smells Holy Here

So today we had this huge cookout/fellowship meal at the church. It was awesome. Everyone brought their own food and a few guys broke out this super fat-daddy grill and started cookin’ it up. Brothers and sisters stood around eating, talking and laughing for an hour or so and then everyone packed up and headed to the house. After everyone left I turned out the lights, locked the doors, went home and just crashed for a while before heading back up to church for the high school Bible study. When I got here and got ready to unlock the door I was overwhelmed by the smell of grilled burgers… mmm. No one had been up here cooking for about three hours, but the smell of our cookout still dominated the air. After I unlocked the door, I walked in the building and was again bombarded with the smell of our cookout along with this outrageous desire to slam another burger! It was a fragrant reminder of the awesome fellowship we had together.

It has often struck me, when reading through the Old Testament accounts of sacrifice, just how much worship was a feast for the senses. You would hear the beat of the music alongside the bleating of lambs. You would feel the wool or the wine or grain in your fingers. You would see the flames and smoke of the altar alongside the multi-colored costumes of the priests and the arresting deep red of blood. If you were a priest, all these sacrifices became your meals… the taste of others’ offerings. And maybe more powerfully than any other, you would smell worship. It was like a never-ending barbeque with the aroma of beef, lamb, bread and wine constantly filling every corner of the temple or the tent. It was the height of hands-on drama and it must have been awesome. ‘Holy’ had a smell and it was delicious. It didn’t just feel good to make things right with God… it smelled good.

In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul says, “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life…”

Holiness still has a smell. If we are offering our lives and hearts to Him, people will know it… just like the whole neighborhood knows on a bright summer day when one family breaks out the grill and throws on some burgers, people know when we smell like Him. Some folks don’t like it and some folks do, but when our lives are His, it’s fragrant to Him. Don’t you want to have a life that smells awesome to God? Don’t you want to have a life that makes people hungry for the Bread of Heaven?

Tomorrow the church won’t smell like burgers anymore… that is, unless I bust out that grill again and cook ‘em up! How’s your spiritual aroma? Is it time to get the fire going again? You can smell like Him. You can be fragrant. You can have a life that God loves to sniff and that others walk by and say, “Mmm… what is that?”

Norah Rose sidewalk-chalking it up at the Morgan's last month!


Immaturing

Lately Norah has had a mantra… in every situation, no matter what, she has one thing to say: “I do it all by myself!” In everything from getting in her high chair, putting on her shoes, brushing her teeth, putting in hair bows and everything in between, she desires independence. Now on one hand, this is a very good thing. I want her to get to a place where she can pick out her own clothes and successfully place them all on her body in a socially acceptable way. I want her to be independent in a ton of ways and in fact, one of the biggest blessings in the past couple of years has been the way our oldest little girl Anna has been doing so much for herself, by herself. The only problem with Norah’s intense yearning for independence is that she can’t do a lot of those things yet and with the advent of this desired independence, she’s losing the ability to ask for help.

The clearest example of this is the process of getting in the car. First off, Norah wants to open the door, so if I go anywhere near the handle, she freaks out: “No! I open it all by myself!” But she can’t, so she turns to me after grunting and trying and says, “It’s locked, Daddy.” So, I open the door and try to pick her up to get her in the seat, and yet again, she freaks: “No! I get in all by myself!” This is actually doable, but it takes around six or seven months and usually involves a few slips, bruises and tears. Then comes the seatbelt… wow. She wants to do this so badly, but she’s just not strong enough yet. She needs me, but she doesn’t want my help. If I touch the seatbelt, she freaks yet again: “No! Daddy! I do it all by myself!”

It’s like I’ve been watching someone simultaneously mature and regress. You see, babies love asking for help from their Daddies and Mommies. They are awesome at crying out when they are in need. When they first gain control of their limbs, they show it by holding them out to someone bigger in a cry for help. As we grow though, we become more able, tougher and more self-sufficient. This is a good thing when it comes to being able to feed yourself lunch, but it’s a very bad thing when it comes to spiritual matters...

One time people were bringing babies to Jesus and He was pumped! His disciples thought this was a waste of time and tried to stop the influx of infants, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

You see, when it comes to understanding what it takes to know God, babies are pros. They know how to cry for help. In watching Norah lately, I’ve been able to see in myself so many things I’m trying to do that I’m just not strong enough to do… things I need my Daddy in heaven to do for me… things I need to cry about instead of huffing and puffing and trying harder. I can’t clean myself up… I can’t be good enough or acceptable enough on my own. I can’t prove how awesome I am at this… I’ve been thinking that a big secret to growing is immaturing… going backwards to days when I wasn’t so strong and self-reliant… days when I knew how to need, and when I knew how to cry about it.

Anna kickin' it on Sam's trampoline...

(stay tuned for a video at the end of this post!)

Unseen Feet

We’re getting to a place with this third pregnancy (and the accompanying sickness) where the kids are getting used to it and know what to expect with Mommy being really sick… I mean, they don’t give me funny looks anymore when I show up in their bedroom after they wake up in the morning. Before all this started I was always off and working before they got up, but now I am Mr. Breakfast-time, and they’re getting used to that. Also they’ve learned that when we get home from the store or the gym or wherever not to furiously knock on the locked front door until I can get there with the diaper bag or groceries to unlock it, as this makes Christy feel that she has to get up and get the door… not good. They’ve also sort of learned that when we arrive home, they don’t really need to go stampeding through the house to find Christy while screaming at the top of their lungs about whatever adventures we’ve had… (I say “sort of learned” because they are two rambunctious girls who love to stampede and scream more than almost anything.)

It turns out that we’re all really learning a lot. I’m learning how hard it is to be a full-time mom with laundry, dishes, naptime, bedtime, tax time, bath time, nutrition, spills and bad attitudes that all need my undivided attention right now! How am I supposed to give Anna computer time and reading time as well as give Norah ABC and color/shape time when (if I’m honest) I’m trying to make it to bedtime without completely losing my mind?! And on top of all this, my sweetheart is sicker than she’s ever been and in all the running around, grocery shopping and coordinating play dates, I just miss being with her…

I keep waking up every day with the mind-set that today will be the day… either it will be the day that the sickness stops and life can get back to normal, or it will be the day when I have a breakthrough and really grow… becoming the patient and long suffering parent that I desperately want to be when this whole thing is over. Everyday I go to the Scriptures looking for hope and looking for help. Will we make it through this? How? When? Sometimes I feel like one of the random millions of Israelites after that first Passover… all I see is water in front and an army behind and I’m not Moses, so I don’t know the plan… I’m just sitting there in the middle of the night waiting on a way out.

In Psalm 77 the songwriter Asaph talked about that night. He said, “The waters saw You , O God, the waters saw You and writhed; the very depths were convulsed. The clouds poured down water, the skies resounded with thunder; Your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, Your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, though Your footprints were not seen.”

Unlike the movie representations of that amazing night, the Red Sea didn’t split in twenty seconds… it took all night and according to Asaph, it was a long and stormy night of waiting and getting soaked. Sometimes God’s paths are long, dark and full of wind, rain, thunder and lightning, but He always walks in front, even when we can’t see His footprints. This trial has been hard, but I know that I am growing… be it ever so slowly. We’re going to make it out and we’re going to be different on the other side because we’re walking the path of the invisible footprints.


Here's a little video i put together for Norah... er, I mean, of Norah, for me...

Enjoy!

We Need You!

This week I got a great CD in the mail that I ordered from Amazon.com. It was a CD that I discovered at the end of high school and just wore out in college. Christy and I used to listen to it non stop in the early days of our dating and then married life. It was by this country/rock band called the Jayhawks and I loved every track on the record. Well, after college, we moved back to Oak Ridge and into a house and before we knew it, Anna was born and our whole lives changed. It wasn’t long before we turned around good and discovered that we didn’t know where half of our stuff was. Sure, we knew where to find pacifiers and bouncy seats, but college degrees, passports and dearly loved CD’s had gone by the wayside.

Well, a couple weeks ago I thought about the Jayhawks and especially the first song on the record, which is one of my all-time favorites; and realized that we had probably lost that CD at some point in the whole process of our lives turning upside down. I scoured the house for the familiar cover art, imagining in my mind’s eye that I remembered seeing it in any one of a million places, but I had no luck. It was gone. I mentioned my deferred longing to Christy in hopes that she may have seen the CD lying around, but those hopes too were dashed.

Finally we had a chance to go out to Knoxville on a date together and after an awesome dinner, we went to every music store in town looking for the Jayhawks, but alas, we were unsuccessful again. In the end, we ordered it from Amazon and a week later, it was in the mailbox! I was so excited that I crammed it in the CD player as soon as I got back in the car! I just knew that hearing the first few chords of those songs I loved so well was going make my day… but it didn’t. I advanced to the next track, and still no explosion of joy… track after amazing track flew into my ears and totally bypassed my heart. What was happening? Then I realized… I needed Christy. I needed her to be there for me to really get into it. I wasn’t just longing to rock out to the Jayhawks… I was longing for someone to share it with… someone who loved the Jayhawks the way I did and knew every word on the CD as well as every slammin’ guitar solo! I needed to listen to that record with someone who cared about it too.

Hebrews 10:25 says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” You see, it’s not just important to worship the Lord… (I mean, that is totally important!) but it’s also important that we come together to do this. It’s good to sing praises to Him, and I love to do it, but when there are a bunch of folks praising Him together, it’s even better! You see, when we are praising together, you’re telling my heart that what we’re doing is important. It’s more important than not being here. It’s more important than whatever else we might be doing. We encourage one another. We affirm the importance of worship. We need each other. I need you to tell me that this matters, and you need me, so let’s not give up meeting together to worship!

Norah holing out the "I'm the big sister" pin Anna wore when Norah was born... Now Norah gets to wear it!

Ownership

Lately Anna has been drawing Pocahontas and John Smith. See, we recently got the Disney movie through Blockbuster Online and it is simply the only movie the girls want to watch right now. As a result, I have had the song Colors of the Wind stuck in my head for the past week and a half…

How high the sycamore grows,
If you cut down, you’ll never know!
And you’ll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon…

I don’t really know what a blue corn moon is, but that song is pretty catchy and seems almost noble right here around earth day… Anyway, Anna loves drawing John Smith with Pocahontas and not only are the drawings really cute, but she’s really pretty proud of them. I love to see how Anna’s art has evolved… how people used to be boxes with dots and now they almost always have all of their appendages, eyelashes and even accessories like earrings! The cool thing is that when I pick her up from Sunday School or some other child care place, I can always pick out her drawings from all the rest. They look like her. And I don’t mean they look like her style of drawing. I mean, they really sort of look like her… like her personality and her heart. These drawings are always very colorful and full of emotion… just like Anna.

I was reading the other day in the Gospel of Luke where some dudes were trying to trap Jesus to get Him in trouble by asking about taxes… They wanted Him to come down on one side or the other about a heated political issue so that He would get in big trouble with somebody. “Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” He saw through their duplicity and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. He said to them, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Luke tells us that they were not only unable to trap Him, but that they were so astonished by His answer that they became silent… You know, I think they were silenced because they understood what He was saying to them about ownership. The coin looks like Caesar. It has his name on it. It was stamped out in his image. By his power and authority it was made and is, so it belongs to him. Give it back to him… And in the same way, you were made by God in His image. By His power and authority you were made and are who you are. There are things about you that are like Him because He made you. You are His completely. You belong to Him.

It is my belief that if we really understood the concept of ownership… that we belong completely to God and not to ourselves, everything about our lives would change. Jesus actually has a double claim on us because not only did He make us, but He also gave Himself to buy us back, and this is redemption. First He formed us, then He actually purchased us. We are totally His. In a way, we can be like Anna’s drawings: if only we gave Him what is rightfully His… we would change and start looking more like Him too.


Here's Anna... pretty pumped about a lady bug she made with play-doh.

Here's the girls loving the newly (and welcome) warm weather!


A Husband’s Heart

During this long season of sickness, I have loved learning how to serve my wife. Not there has been too much that I could actually do to take away the sickness, but I have been able at times to do various things that at least made her somewhat comfortable or relaxed. For a while, it was all about having a hot cup of ginger peach tea waiting by the bed before she even woke up. These days it’s Tang. I know it’s a little thing, but I quickly found that my favorite activity of the day was making that tea just the way she likes it (not too strong) and sneaking into the bedroom to leave it waiting.

Learning to be a servant is one of the hardest and most will-breaking things a person can do because we’re so naturally selfish; but honestly, serving my wife has been easy, because from the first moment I saw her face over ten years ago I’ve been in love like some kind of mad man. It may be hard to learn servanthood because we love ourselves so much, but give us something we love more than ourselves and it’s a piece of cake.

I can remember being a senior in high school (when I first met and started listening to my pastor) and hearing how important the concept of slavery is in the New Testament. I had grown up in church and had never heard this before... This idea that as people purchased by the blood of Christ, we are now his slaves. Of course, I remember people mentioning the notion of slavery to Christ, but as soon as they said it they would jump back ten feet and qualify this word by talking about the whole bond-slave thing… you know, where a slave set free decided to go back to his master because he loved him so much, so it wasn’t really like slavery at all… I was sort of shocked to discover that the language of the New Testament was clear… 44 times it talks about us being slaves to God and word they’re using is just the word slave. They just say, “slave of Christ” or “now that you have been set free from sin and enslaved to God” like in Romans 6:22.

As I was starting to get used to this idea of being Christ’s flat-out slave, I was shocked again when I heard Tom talk about the fact that Jesus is going to slave after us one day… Luke 12:37 says, “It will be good for those servants (slaves) whose master finds them watching when He comes. I tell you the truth, He will dress Himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.” Now, those words for serving and waiting on are all about slavery! He is going to slave after us when we all get to heaven! Can you even handle this?

I remember the first time I heard about this verse, and I thought it was scandalous! I mean, I understand us being His slaves, but come on, Him slaving after us? It seemed to me a condescension too great… an unbelievable and outrageous oversight. Surely God will not be man’s slave?! But then I remembered something… this banquet Jesus was talking about will be His wedding reception, and we are His bride. This isn’t an outrage. It’s a husband’s love. I can still remember my wedding reception… just asking Christy over and over again if she was okay and if I could get her anything at all. And now after years of being married my greatest joy of the day is making that tea in the morning. It’s easy to have the slave mindset when you’re a husband in love.

The Girls went over to Aunt Jodie's this week and she took these awesome pics...


Underneath

I feel like everywhere I go lately I am answering one question: “How’s Christy doing today?” The one asking always has that sympathetic look in their eyes as they prepare themselves for the answer it seems I always give: “She’s not doing well… it’s been a rough day.” Sickness is tough… I mean, having a cold is like an annoyance and being really, really sick is a battle, but this unrelenting week after week of debilitating sickness feels something like Vietnam: a knock-down, drag-out fight you can’t see a way out of and you don’t remember not being in…

In watching Christy and trying to serve her through this time, I’ve often thought about Job suffering in ashes and piles of broken pots for who knows how long. I’ve thought about that woman in Matthew 9 who was incurably bleeding for 12 years or the man born blind in John 9 or that guy in John 5 who had been paralyzed for 38 years… Suffering is hard, but learning how to live with ongoing suffering is something else entirely. And look, I know it’s only been a couple of months, but that’s a long time when you’re sitting in the middle of it with no end in sight.

I think one of the hardest things about all of this for Christy (I mean, aside from feeling terrible all of the time) has just been the fear that maybe it won’t ever change… that this is life now. I’ve told her so many times, “Don’t worry babe, it’s gonna be over one day… you’ll feel normal again.” And unable to really talk, she just looks back with tears piled high in her tired eyes hoping that’s true, and afraid to have hope just in case it isn’t. I’ve often thought things were as bad as they could ever be only to see her turn a corner and plunge further and further into misery… there have been points at which I’ve honestly wondered, “How far down can we really go and still make it back out? How deep is this thing going to take us, and if we get there, will we find Him? Is He going to be there?”

It turns out that no matter how far down we go, He’s there, waiting. He continues to show us His love and minister to our hearts, minds and bodies. Last night Christy’s Sunday School class brought us dinner as so many others have… Family after family has been taking our kids and running them into the ground and feeding them so that I can get a little work done and He even gave us a few laughs last night over Everybody Loves Raymond and some hilarious commercial that had the legendary Meatloaf in it…

This morning I read a verse in Deuteronomy 33 that said, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” No matter how far down we go, we can find Him if we’re looking. He’s a refuge, ready for us to run into His embrace like a hurting, confused and worn out baby, because even in the absolute subterranean depths of anguish and misery, He’s there. His everlasting arms are always underneath.


P.S. Charlie and his rockin' daughter came over yesterday, and I grabbed the camera for these pics of Dylan with Christy...

The Kids' rocking cousins came over yesterday, so Norah and Josiah were having fun with chalk on the porch.


O For Grace

Last Sunday night I went to see a Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn concert that (as expected) was completely awesome. To me there’s just something really mystical about live music… especially when you’re watching people with love for God in their heart weave that love together in rhythm, melody, harmony and rhyme. In a way, it feels like a work-out… but without all the cut-off t-shirts, classic rock, trainers, iPods, and sweat. When I say ‘work-out’ what I mean is that when I left the show, I felt good. I felt like something had happened. I felt stronger. We all have struggles, questions, victories and defeats, and it’s encouraging to watch someone turn all of those things into something beautiful and then present it to you for your encouragement. It was like my faith was lifting weights.

Well, to end the show, Jill suggested we all sing a hymn together and just started leading us in “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” Whoa. I haven’t sung that song in probably eleven or twelve years just because I have spent so much time in the past decade sort of detoxing from some of the stuff about my old church. It turned out that I only remembered the first verse and chorus, but I sang it, and as I did, something happened… I trusted Jesus. I don’t mean I got saved… that happened a long time ago. What I mean is that right then and there, in all the problems and perplexities of that day, and having lived through the week I had just lived through, I sang that song and in so doing, I actually trusted Jesus. I trusted Him to take care of Christy in this time of seemingly unending and debilitating sickness. I trusted Jesus to sell my house and find us a new one. I trusted Him to make my ministry flourish and to make my relationships with kids grow deep. I trusted Him to make me the kind of Dad that can not only handle, but flourish with three kids. I just trusted Jesus.

I guess that is the thing I love about worship… that when a person knows Christ, they’re different from other folks because God’s Spirit actually resides inside them in this mystical union so that singing songs isn’t just making music, but actually has the potential to become something more than just music. For the Christian, singing a song of praise has the potential to become worship… and when it does that, it actually changes you.

I went home that night and Christy and I were talking about all the difficult things coming up in our life and when she asked me how I was doing with all of it, I answered, “Honestly, I’m great. Jill Phillips made me sing, “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” and when I sang it, I really just started trusting Him.” Christy got this incredulous look in her eyes and said, “No way! The other day I was so sick and my throat was so torn up so that I could barely talk, but that song was just on my heart, so I tried to sing it as best as I could… that same song.”

Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, and to take Him at His word;
Just to rest upon His promise, and to know, “Thus saith the Lord.”
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust Him more!

His Esteem

I don’t have tons and tons of really vivid memories from being a little kid, but the few that I can remember all have to do with what people thought of me. I can remember hating this one dude who used to call me a wimp when I was in third grade. I can remember how great it made me feel when my teachers, relatives or my parent’s friends said I was good at drawing or that I was funny. I don’t guess I’ll ever forget the way I felt when my neighbor said I was “way behind in school” because I couldn’t answer some math problem she whipped at me out of nowhere one day. I can’t even remember my teacher’s names until about seventh grade, but I can still remember the way it felt this one time when someone told me I was “annoying.”

Let’s face it: we care what people think about us… a lot. It’s why we go bananas cleaning up our houses when people come over. It’s why we don’t put our runny-nosed kids in the nursery even though we know it’s only allergies and not a cold. It’s why we wait with baited breath for feedback from anyone and everyone on who we are and how we did. I think I have pretty much always been insecure. I wish that I was like one of those rock-solid people who knows exactly who they are and could care less what anyone else thinks… You know, Anna’s that way, and I don’t think it’s just her age, because I remember being very small and wanting affirmation like oxygen. One time Anna was telling us about her friend Samantha and she said, “You know what me and Samantha both have in common?” “What?” we said, and she answered, “We both love me!”

You know, I can honestly say that in my life, the dumbest and most hurtful things I’ve ever done have been because I was trying to get somebody’s approval or esteem. I was on the prowl for applause from people around me and if I didn’t get it, I tried harder. The things in my life that I wish I could take back… the hurt that I’ve caused others and myself has happened because there was someone I was trying to impress or something I was trying to prove. Maybe you know what I’m talking about… Maybe you know what it feels like to have tons of voices in your life all the time giving you deadlines, giving you stress and giving you standards you have to live up to; defining you and evaluating you…

Way back in the day, when Israel was on the march from Egypt to the Promised Land, a messed up king who didn’t want ‘Moses and co.’ trespassing through his territory hired this messed up psychic/fortune teller dude named Balaam to do a little Voo Doo, say a little Abra-kadabra and curse them back into the desert. There was a ton of money in it for Balaam, so he tried three times to curse them, but God wouldn’t let him do it. When Balaam looked out over these millions of wandering Israelites, the words of God Himself flew out of his mouth and he said, “How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places , O Israel! Like valleys they spread out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters.”

What if we just listened to what the Lord has to say about us instead of what anyone else says? What if we were looking for His esteem instead of some contrived and borrowed self-esteem? No matter what anyone says, He calls us clean, free, acceptable, loved and beautiful! Now that’s what I’m talking about. You know, if the only opinion about you that you really cared about was His, you’d always be encouraged!

Anna asked me to take this so I could put it on my computer...

Brave Daffodils

In the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of spending tons and tons of time with my daughters. There have been stretches where we’ve been together all day from beginning to end and I am learning so much! Not only have I found out millions of places in which I needed to grow that I was totally unaware of; (lack of patience, selfishness, the inability to laugh at myself and of course, the unfair expectations I have of a two-year-old who is just doing her best to be a somewhat-human in this world) but I am also finding out that my kids are funnier and more fun than I had ever realized. I feel like we have a tackled a hard situation head-on and have really and truly become better friends.

One thing I’ve learned about my kids is that if I will just shut up and listen, I’ll hear them say the coolest and funniest stuff ever. For instance, Norah calls elevators “alligators” and she calls fingernails (and toenails) “hand-tails.” Every single time I change her, she sticks those feet up in the air and says, “Oooh Dad, see my pretty, purple hand tails?!” Yesterday I was driving the girls around when I heard them talking about a book. I decided to listen in for a minute and it turned out that they were conducting a business deal whereby Norah was going to write the book and Anna would be the illustrator. I finally decided to dive into this conversation, asking Norah what the name of the book would be. She said, “Ummmmm, Caterpillar Juice.” Anna laughed and laughed and we proceeded to grill Norah on the plot and characters of this soon to be classic of children’s fiction.

Well, last week as we were getting in the car on a rainy, gray morning, Anna looked at our flowerbeds and exclaimed, “Oh Dad, our daffodils are so brave!” I chuckled and asked her, “They’re brave? Why are they brave?” She looked up after snapping her seatbelt and said, “Because, they’re blooming in the rain.”

I thought about that for a long time that morning… blooming in the rain. I thought about the tough time our family was going through and how difficult it’s been to hold on to joy through these weeks of hardship. I thought about Paul in Romans 5 saying, “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He as given us.”

Anna was right. It was brave of those flowers to keep on standing up and bursting with spring color and fervor in the midst of a downpour of gloomy gray, but it wasn’t just brave. It was smart. Those flowers need the rain to grow. In fact, they can’t be beautiful without it. Suffering is productive. Going through hard times teaches us things about God we couldn’t have known otherwise. He proves His character to us when times are hard. He pours out His love into our hearts and we know Him more. Rejoicing in trials is brave and smart, because we (like the daffodils) grow in the pouring rain.



Here's a pre-release illustration from "Caterpillar Juice" in which the caterpillar is actually walking up the side of the glass of apple juice that it will soon fall into. You can also see that everyone in the picture is very sad because of the tears and frowns. Anna is on the left and there is an Easter Egg on the far right. I think one of the other crying people is Norah, but i'm not totally sure which one.

Norah Rose Lovin' the Park


A Day Off

Every Wednesday night as we wrap up worship practice, there is this euphoric feeling that sweeps over me as I realize that my week is almost over… you see, Thursday is my day off, so when we sing that last song on Wednesday night and I turn out the lights and lock the doors of the church, I’m done, and I’m off! I turn off my phone, turn off my alarm clock and uncoil for twenty-four hours. It’s an awesome feeling to have that day off, and it’s not a deal where my job is killing me or anything like that… I love my job and my life, but the Apostle Paul did talk about facing daily what he called “the pressure of my concern for all the churches” and it’s awesome to take one day a week and just lay that down, letting someone else deal with it and not picking it up again until Friday.

Today is Good Friday… the day we remember what our Lord did when He laid His life down to pay for our sins. Traditionally Christians get together on this day to observe a solemn and sacred time of remembrance by singing songs and listening to the Scriptures that tell of our Lord’s death. I have been reading the book of Numbers lately and in doing so, I have realized just how appropriate this is. You see, when Jesus died, it was during the feast of Passover. He was, in fact, the true Passover lamb, and Numbers 28 talks about that feast and how God’s people were supposed to observe it.

“On the fourteenth day of the first month the Lord’s Passover is to be held. On the fifteenth day of this month there is to be a festival; for seven days eat bread made without yeast. On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. Present to the Lord an offering made by fire, a burnt offering of two young bulls, one ram and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect.”

They were supposed to observe Passover one day and then start a weeklong party the next day with a sacred assembly where no one was allowed to do any work. It was a full week of days off for the whole nation starting the day after Passover… well, almost everyone was off. There were some who still had work to do on the day after Passover: two young bulls, one ram and seven male lambs a year old… they had some pretty solemn work to do on that day, and that made me think of Jesus. On the day after Passover, when the whole country was having a day off, Jesus did His greatest work. Everyone stopped while He worked… while He paid.

I think God set it up this way because this is the whole picture of what it means to know Him. We can’t clean ourselves up or cover our wrong, but He can. This is what Sabbath is really all about. It’s not so much about resting, it’s about stopping… taking a day off from trying to do what we can’t do. We need to stop working for what we can’t pay for and let Jesus do the work for us. We need to lay it down, and let Him pick it up. When you get together with your brothers and sisters tonight, hold your sacred assembly and do no regular work, because it’s all been done. Just remember.

Last night Anna and I got all dressed up to go to hear the local orchestra throw down on some of my music!


Tenderness

Finding out that you’re having a baby is one of life’s most exciting and amazing blessings, but in our house the excitement is mingled inseparably with fear… you see, Christy gets so sick for months on end during pregnancy and it’s not that having our wonderful kids isn’t worth all that, it’s just a rough season to be staring down the barrel of. Sometimes people ask me, “Does Christy get some morning sickness when she’s pregnant?” and I always say, “Well, it’s morning sickness in the sense that it starts in the morning at about four weeks and goes non-stop till around sixteen weeks.” Sickness and pain can be some of life’s biggest downers because no matter how much you want to feel upbeat and good, you just don’t. I knew as soon as we saw the positive pregnancy test that this was going to be a long and hard road, so I got myself mentally prepared for months of whatever was coming…

It’s so hard to watch someone you love go through the fire, and I guess it’s the craziness of love that brings this on, but there have been so many times that I have longed to take Christy’s sickness on myself. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I could handle it any better than she is or anything… I just don’t want her to go through it. But as Aslan says, “You only get your own story.” My goal has been simply to serve and to make it through this season (how ever long) with our heads up on the other side. Simply put, my objective has been survival. I know, I know, we’re supposed to be “more than conquerors” and all that, but hey if I’m being honest, we’re just trying to make it through this one!

Then I got a call from Christy yesterday and she sounded different. I asked her how she was doing and she said she was great… I was a little mystified because, I knew she was sick, but that’s not really what she meant. Then she began to tell me about how she just realized that to simply survive this thing was not enough… that she was going to go crazy that way, so she reached out for the Lord and she said, (and her voice so sweetly broke as she said it) “My Lord has been so tender with me today…” The Fairest Lord Jesus met her where she was and somehow gave her peace about all she was going through… Late last night she said that she wasn’t even going to wish away the sickness because “for some reason He wants me to have this.” I just had to watch, listen and learn as she showed me how we were going to make it through this.

Psalm 55 says this, “But I will call to God, and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice. He ransoms me unharmed from the battle waged against me…” and then down in verse 22 he says, “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.” Thank you Lord. Thanks for loving my girl so tenderly…

“A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.” Matthew 12:20

The two big sisters... On our day off we got Vietnamese take-out from "Kim Son" and took it over to some park benches by the Science Museum. The girls liked hanging out on this stump...



Who Were We Missing?

On Sunday night as kids were leaving church after High School Bible Study, Christy called my cell phone and asked if I was in a room alone. I told her I was and without very much warning, she hung up the phone on me! I was a little baffled, but my heart started beating very quickly because somewhere in the back of my mind I knew what was up… Well a few seconds later my phone buzzed again and when I opened it up I saw that I had a picture message from Christy’s phone. I clicked ‘open’ and there it was… a positive pregnancy test! We were having our third baby!

Now, we didn’t exactly plan on having this baby, but at the same time, whenever Christy and I talked about our family and future, we just couldn’t say that we were totally done with kids. I mean, we love our two girls and couldn’t be happier; but we just weren’t ready to say for sure, “Yeah, this is it for us,” and now we know why… there was one more of us in the plans of God! As soon as I saw that picture message on my phone, I knew by the hammering heart in my chest that the reason we couldn’t decide to be done was because we were still missing someone! And then this feeling overwhelmed me from the top of my head all the way down to my toes: Who were we missing? Who was this new little person going to be? We know who Anna and Norah are, but what will this new face look like? How will this new heart beat? How sweet will it sound when I first hear my four favorite words, “I love you, Daddy” from this new mouth?

Well, we have a long time to wait… we’re only five weeks along, so it’s going to be months and months before I actually get to meet my newest treasure, but it’s already happening… What I mean is, all the DNA is in place for our newest baby and right now cells are rapidly replicating and specializing to put together this brand new person to just the right specifications. Even after the birth there will be change upon change as this unique personality forms and grows. One day we’ll know who this new person is, but until then we wait and love the new baby at every stage…

In Revelation, Jesus says that He will personally give stuff to those who overcome. He says this in chapter 2: “I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.” One day, when I see Jesus face to face, I’m going to finally be the person He’s always had in mind for me to be. On that day I will be the fulfillment of His unique plan in making me and He will give me a new name… one that expresses all that He intended for me. I’m not there yet, but everything I need to grow is in place inside me and everyday I’m changing and become more His. What an incredible thought… that God knows who I’ll be, that He knows who He’s missing in me and that one day I’ll be all He ever wanted me to be. And just like my new baby, even though I’m not there yet, He knows I’m growing and He loves me at every single stage.

So, we got a little snow the other day and here's a shot of Norah out in it!



Seeing the Invisible

Have you ever pretended to see something that you really couldn’t? Like, remember when the big thing was those Magic Eye books? You know, the ones with abstract computer generated images that supposedly had other 3D images imbedded in them that would fly out at you if you looked at them in a certain special way? Yeah, well I tried for years to see the magic pictures in those books. I would focus and unfocus my eyes, turn my head, turn the book, stick my nose on the page, stick my eyeball on the page, concentrate, empty my mind, cross my eyes, stand on my head and I even tried praying a couple of times, but I never saw a blasted thing. To be honest, I think the whole thing was a big hoax… like the Emperor’s New Clothes of the 90’s where no one wanted to admit they couldn’t see the thing because seeing it was the cool thing to do.

Well, lately I have noticed something coming up a bunch in the Scriptures… and that is, the importance of ‘seeing’ God. This wasn’t a subject I went looking for during my time in the Word or anything, it has just sort of happened. In the past few months I’ve just been noticing what seems to be the huge importance of seeing Him and I don’t really get it. It’s actually been a bit troubling to me in my reading and thinking about Scripture because I’ve never actually seen God, and in fact, the Apostle John tells us three times that no one has ever seen God. So what in the world am I supposed to do with the fact that seeing Him is apparently super important and no one’s ever done it?

Check this out: Psalm 17 says, “And I in righteousness will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.” Psalm 25:15 says, “My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only He will release my feet from the snare.” Psalm 34:5 says, “Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” When the writer of Hebrews gets all cranked up talking about Moses in chapter 11 and how he left riches and power to follow God and rescue Israel it says that Moses “persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.” And in the very next chapter we are encouraged to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

How can I see Him who is invisible?! How can I fix my eyes on a person I can’t see? “My eyes are ever on the Lord?!” What if my eyes are never on the Lord?!

Obviously we don’t have to physically see Him with our eyes, but what is seeing Him really all about then? For the answer to this question, I turn as usual to my resident theologian: my four-year old daughter… You see, whenever Anna is playing with little Lego people, one of them is Jesus and the rest are the ‘little children’ who came to Him in Matthew 19. When Anna wraps up a baby doll to mother and care for it, it’s almost always the baby Jesus. She loves to take care of Him. The other day we went on a walk and Anna picked up a little branch that had fallen from a pine tree. She stuck her arm above her head and started to wave it around like she was dancing. When we asked her what she was doing, she said, “I’m waving this branch to my favorite boy!” (a.k.a. Jesus) You see, Jesus just colors everything in her world. She doesn’t have one part of her life that He’s not included in… she sees Him everywhere, in that she sees everything through the lenses of His existence in her life, her love for Him and His activity in her life. Isn’t that how you do it? Isn’t that how you see Him who is invisible?

Unstoppable Nerdiness...

So, back in the day Charlie and I were on the same Young Life team and did a lot of skits together. One time we were these guys called Scotty and Shamus McFarlane, the Irish Samurai. While working on the sword-fighting choreography, we thought, "Why not make a lightsaber movie?"

I really miss those days! It was fun to do all that silliness with Charlie and to indulge our unparalleled dork-hood in the name of Jesus...

Anyway, here is our lightsaber test movie. Charlie did all the hard work. If you want to see his latest amazing creation, just go to his blog by clicking here.

Here's Anna listening to some rocking epic power-ballads on Christy's new iPod!

The Bridegroom

When I was 21 and a junior in college, I was ready to marry Christy. We had talked about it for years, and I felt it was time, so one January night I approached her dad, Bill to ask for his blessing. The following is an account of that meeting:

Let me just say that I was super confident about this whole thing until we actually sat down in a booth and I looked across the table at Christy’s dad. When I looked him in the face, I froze like a dear in the headlights. What on earth was I doing?! Who was I kidding? I felt like a fifth grader asking my dad for the car keys. I mean, I was no man! I still loved Lucky Charms and Legos! If I could have had one wish it would have been a real, working light saber! I was just a stupid little boy looking into the face of this man who had held Christy when she was a helpless baby… the man who had wiped her tears and carried her on his shoulders… the man who had baptized her and had loved her for every second of her life… what was I thinking?

Well, long story short, I spent that entire dinner jawing about everything under the sun except my plan to marry Christy. I just got scared and he knew it too. He spent that whole evening looking straight through me with this amused look that said, “Give me your best shot, little dude.” We actually ate all our food, got the check and left the restaurant without me mentioning Christy at all. No kidding. Finally, as we were heading toward the car in the parking lot I stopped and said, “Bill, I want to marry Christy, and I would like to ask you for your blessing.” He laughed and laughed, finally saying, “I wondered how long it was going to take you!”

Well, Bill joyfully gave us his blessing and after Christy accepted my proposal I became something that has been my favorite station or title in this life… And if I won a million Oscars and Grammys, if I earned a hundred PhD’s… if the entire world united to name me the Prime Minister, President, Caesar and Grand Sultan of Planet Earth, not one of those titles would mean as much to me as this: That on a chilly January Saturday afternoon when she said “Yes,” I became a bridegroom. More than that, I became Christy’s groom. And there is no greater honor this world could bestow on me than that of being my wife’s man. You see, she is the Apple of my Eye. She makes my very heart beat. I know this might be cheesy, but my wife has this one smile… I mean, she has a million smiles, but she has this one in particular that is like pure, untainted and child-like joy bursting from the depths of a contented heart, and when I make that smile happen, I’m home.

The reason I tell you all of that mushy stuff is because there is something extremely mushy about Jesus that I am all worked up about this week. There is something about Him that is so cheesy that it’s absolutely wonderful… In John 3, a bunch of folks asked John the Baptist why he was losing his crowd to Jesus, and this was his reply: "The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete."

John calls Jesus “The Bridegroom.” Now, I know this might be kind of a hard thing to get your head around, but the reason that John calls Jesus ‘Bridegroom’ is that Jesus wants to be our groom… Yes, He’s our Maker. Yes, He’s the One who gave His life to save us, and yes, He is in control of all things, but here’s something else you should know about Him… He loves you like a Groom loves his bride. He came because of love for you and He wants to be yours and for you to be His.

You know, when I was talking to Christy’s dad about marrying her, he asked me, “Why do you want to do this now instead of waiting until you both graduate and have jobs?” Now, I probably could have come up with some reason that would have sounded really wise and well thought out, but the problem was, I hadn’t really thought it out, so I just answered honestly. “The truth is,” I said, “I just don’t want to live another day without your daughter.” It was about love! I just wanted a life with Christy. I wanted to take over responsibility for her. I wanted to provide for her and be the one who filled her heart and made her smile.

That’s the way Jesus feels about you. He wants to fill those empty places. He wants to take care of your needs. He wants to take over responsibility for your life, meeting all your needs and giving you true joy. He’s all the love you’re looking for and He’s the Bridegroom… He’s the One who longs to see you walking down the aisle toward Him, giving your heart back to Him. I can still remember my heart hammering when I saw her in that dress for the first time… my bride. Man, I loved her so much. Just think, that’s just an infinitesimal fraction of the way the God of the universe feels about you!


My Bride:

Norah got some sunglasses and a new bathing suit for Valentine's Day... she proceeded to wear them both right there in the house.


Smoke Rings and Sun Beams

So, the other day Christy got the girls a ton of library books and after reading this one awesome book about love, I asked Anna if I could borrow it, take it to work and then bring it back a day or so later… whoa! You would have thought I had asked her for one of her lungs! She became so sad and upset and then straight-up told me, “No.” I told her I was only going to borrow it for a little while and then give it right back, but my words were lost in a flood of hysterical tears. Her whole day was ruined by the prospect of that book leaving the house, and no matter how much I assured her that I would indeed bring it back very soon, no smile could break through that sad little face.

You see, as soon as I mentioned borrowing the book, Anna got it in her mind that she would never see it again… She was operating under a false reality, which in turn fueled an unnecessary sadness.

In Philippians 4 Paul tells us to “rejoice in the Lord always…” Now, if it’s possible to rejoice always, then is it fair to say that some of our sadness, despondency and depression is unnecessary? I don’t know… but one thing I’m fairly convinced of is the idea that a whole lot of our unnecessary sadness is fueled by false realities. We look at our overwhelming situations and say over them things like, “There is no hope.” “It will always be this way.” “They’ll never change.” Mike Mason says that the only problem you’ve never overcome in your life is the one you’re in right now… you’ve made it through everything so far and one day you’ll be out of this one too. But most people don’t really think that way. Mostly people think, “Look at this unbearable and impossible situation! I can’t believe I’m here… I can’t handle this!”

In my experience, when you try to talk sad people out of their sadness they don’t really want to hear it, or they’re ‘not ready for that yet.’ If you try to encourage them by talking about all the amazing truths and promises we have in Christ, many folks will blow you off. And hey, I’m the same way and have done the same things. It’s like you’re trying to blow sunshine up my nose or something and I just see all those promises as smoke and mirrors… Well look, I am not an advocate of optimism for it’s own sake or the power of positive thinking. I mean, when the glass is half empty or even all the way empty, I don’t want to say it’s anything else. I don’t want to tell you the sun’s shining when it’s dark outside, but here’s what I am saying: What if it’s a beautiful sunny day outside and we just won’t open up the blinds?

Right after telling us to rejoice always and be anxious for nothing, Paul says this: “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” The cool thing here is that the word Paul wrote that we have translated ‘think’ really means to count on… in other words, it’s not just getting your happy thought… He’s saying that these true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable and praiseworthy things are the reality; so count on it. It’s not optimism, it’s realism! Whatever you’re in, the promises of Christ are the reality! Count on it! The sun is shining, so open up those blinds and let it in!

Now there's a blast of pure joy...

Just to Sing

The other day I was just down in the dumps. I felt tired, frazzled and about a million miles away from Jesus. It was so weird because I know He promises to never leave or forsake us and all that, but I felt so spiritually alone and disconnected from Him. At this point Christian Cliché would say that, “It was I who walked away from Him…” I know, I know… but look, I was having my quiet time everyday, and I was even getting stuff out of it, but I just felt estranged from His heart. I was trying to disciple these high school guys on what it means to have a devotional life and time in the word everyday and I wound up feeling so confused and conflicted because it dawned on me that I didn’t know how to do it. I mean, the Bible doesn’t really have a quiet time planner or sure-fire devotional program… there is no specific instruction on how to be close to the Lord. I wanted to grow, but I felt like it just wasn’t happening.

The more I thought about it, the more stressed out I became. I actually started projecting my negative devotional life back through time thinking, “I’ve never known how to do this… I have a terrible relationship with the Lord.” I talked to Tom about these dark thoughts and he basically told me to relax. He said, “You know you love Jesus! Just don’t worry about it.” That was certainly true… I may not love Jesus as much as other folks have and do; and I certainly don’t love Him as much as I will one day, but I know for sure that I do love Him… I love Him tons. So I did what Tom said and just chilled out about it and went on with my day.

Hours later I took the girls up to church and let them just play around while I set up tables and chairs for this Bible Study. It was tangible and measurable work that felt good to do and when I was done and piled the kids back in the car to go home, I noticed something in the door of the car… it was a Rich Mullins CD I’ve heard about a billion times. Now, the car ride from church to my house only takes about two and a half minutes, but I was tired of the music that was playing, so I took it out and tossed Rich in. Without thinking about what I was doing, I started to sing along to the first song…

Sing your praise to the Lord, come on everybody
Stand up and sing one more “Hallelujah!”
Sing your praise to the Lord, I can never tell you
Just how much good that it’s gonna do ya just to sing…

When I somewhat mindlessly sang those words about ‘how much good it’s gonna do ya,’ something happened: my heart burst to life as if I had been resuscitated from days of flat lining… And there He was! It was as if the curtains were thrown back and light and life and joy flooded the room through the windows of praise. Psalm 22 says, “Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” The King James says that He ‘inhabits’ His people’s praises. I found this to be true. He was right there! And as I sang, I told Him that I loved Him; and I told me too. I’m not trying to give you a program or anything, I’m just a guy saying, “I sang my praise to the Lord and it did me good.”



rich mullins...

The Pasteboard Placard

On Christy’s recommendation, I have started to read Charles Dickens’ classic novel, David Copperfield. It’s the story of an unfortunate boy whose father died six months before his birth and so wound up living the first part of his life with his mother and housekeeper. His happiness in this situation was short lived, as his mother soon courted and married a guy who could teach Satan a thing or two about what it takes to be mean… this horrible new step dad was actually a package deal that came complete with a sister who would be Davey’s new aunt and moved in to give a new definition to the meaning of torture. She was (if possible) worse than her brother. Soon the whole house changed and poor Davey’s life became a tightrope act where affection, love and laughter were traded for tyranny, fear and humiliation. One day Davey came downstairs to deliver his grammar lesson and found his new father holding a cane he had bound and fashioned out of switches. When Davey couldn’t remember his lesson, he was escorted upstairs to his room by his new dad and the cane… upon entering his bedroom, Davey bit his step dad’s hand out of desperation and self-protection and the next day was sent away from the house to go to a boarding school in London called Salem House.

After enduring many hardships to get to London and the school, young Davey was taken up to his new bedroom, which was empty because all the other boys were on holiday. As he walked to the end of the room, he looked on a desk and saw a ‘pasteboard placard, beautifully written’ which had these words on it: “Take care of him. He bites.” Upon reading these words, Davey immediately jumped onto the desk for fear of whatever rabid dog that sign must be talking about… the fellow that showed him to his room saw him on the desk and asked him what he was doing up there.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” says I, “if you please, I’m looking for the dog.”
“Dog?” says he; “what dog?”
“Isn’t it a dog, sir?”
“Isn’t what a dog?”
“That’s to be taken care of, sir; that bites?”
“No, Copperfield,” says he gravely. “That’s not a dog. That’s a boy. My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your back…” With that, he took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and wherever I went, afterwards, I had the consolation of carrying it.”

What if your worst moments were painted neatly on a sign you had to wear on your back? What if everywhere you went people were looking at a record of your most shameful sins? David Copperfield said that every time he leaned with his back to a tree or a wall or the house he was told to turn and show that ‘badge’ conspicuous… He said that wherever he went he knew people were reading it and even if he turned around and found no one behind him it gave him no comfort because it still felt like people were reading it. He said that he began to have a sort of dread of himself, “… as a kind of wild boy who did bite.”

There is a place in the darkest, most frightened and unsaved parts of my heart where I am afraid that meeting God will be like this… that I’ll get in, but before I do, all my friends and family will gather around and read the sign of my darkest days… but thanks be to God! I can put those fears to rest! In Colossians 2 Paul says, “God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Whoa! Do you believe this?! Even if there was a sign fashioned for you, it was cancelled! It was nailed to the cross, and the only ones ashamed are the defeated, disarmed demons! We are free and clean and we can walk that way.

Here's a picture of Charles Dickens taken in 1850:



He was the man!