Ok, so day 1. well back up a bit. day 2 of this Blog actually, but if we want to talk about heavier things, then this is actually like Day 12 of my attempt at the South Beach Diet. I lost 8 pounds in 8 days, but the second week is definitely harder than the first, since you lose a little steam and your choices seem to not have variety.

actually the secret is, constantly finding something new to try, new combinations and keep the menu shaken up.

Ok enough about the whole diet thing, that is not why we are here. We are here to really look at life and meaning and purpose and all that. The message this week was really rough at church. Piercing, hurting, tough, truth, life.

In discussing marriage, Johnny O. really hit us hard. We are not married to have good marriages and it is possible to have good marriages that are not glorifying to God. We are married for the simple reason of bringing Glory to God. All things are to the glory of God, all purpose is to that end. However, do we live like that, are we in our marriages like that? No, we pursue other things more than God, our spouse more than God, peace in our marriage more than God. Our spouses will not be ignored should we have something “better” to do than to spend time with them, that will cause immediate response. However, God patiently waits for us to sit at His feet in prayer and in relationship and we often run along on to other things, giving Him, Creator of all, little notice or little time.

I am convicted of this. I need to pursue Him, to spend time with Him, to understand Him, to know Him more than just the shallow knowledge that I have of Him now. How can I impact the world and lost souls if I do not know of what I profess? How can I love my wife in the way that she was meant to be loved if I do not Know Him first?

These are all hard questions. Harder still is the nagging one, do we even care? We know all these things, but will we sacrifice time? effort? humility? to get closer to our Creator, closer to Jesus Christ? Will we change to make that relationship that is more important above all, most important in our lives rather than a left over? That is the painful question because our flesh says no. Our pride says no. Yet, our soul cries out to do so.

more on this later…

God has created all things for His glory. Start there. Children created for His glory. Children created to reflect His glory. Marvelous gifts they are. Mirrors of ourselves in many ways, mirrors of our relationship with God, mirrors of our sinfulness, mirrors of God’s grace, mercy, freely extended.

I am frustrated at myself, how I demand strict obedience of my child, yet I don’t strictly obey God. I am convicted, many times tonight, such that it pains my soul, my very being and angers me, with me, with her, with my unfaithfulness. How awful I am, wretched and sinful before God, carrying on about all things about me, me centered, when in fact, I should be Christ centered, recognizing His gift and what has allowed me into the throne room of God to pour out my heart in the first place. It is amazing I have not been struck from the earth.

I have been praying that I would be filled with passion, hunger, desire. I have been filled with pictures of my failures, wrongs, my ugliness. Ironically, this has made me more hungry, more intent on figuring out where I am at and how to get closer to God. And then this tonight, my daughter being rebellious and my disciplining her and discussing things with her just blasting me in my face about how I treat God, exactly the same way, except worse, as my daughter treats me.

Lord, oh God, I fear I am often far from you. I long to be close, to hear your voice and to see your face. Lord, draw me near, I admit my faults, my faithlessness, my disobedience. In so many ways. In not being passionate about your word, in not loving others as myself, in being petty over so many things. In being harsh or angry with people. All these things happen often in my life, more than I care to count in any given week. HELP ME GOD! If you don’t come, I am lost, if your spirit does not rule my life then I am undone. I have only you. Lord, I am not a good leader in my home, I am weak. i have listened to the devil and fell victim to his lies and allowed that to discourage me in my leadership position. I have continued to be passive in many ways, instead of going to war against the things that you despise. Lord help me to do that. I beg you to lead me in leading my wife, my daughter in loving and Christlike ways, but firm and in faith and in Love. We are at war with sin and this requires violence towards my sin. I need to kill my own sin, or rather, to allow you to kill it in me. I must be intentional. Not allowing nature to run it’s course, but to wield your word as a weapon against the things that I am faced with. Lord, help me to institute family bible time, where each of us is in the word together, nightly. Help me to pray with my wife, more than just when I arise, but also when we are both awake, way before we go to sleep. Help me, admonish me to allow Brighton to see this. Lord, take my hunger for the word and spread it throughout the house. increase it in me Lord. Give me practical, down to earth things to share with a four year old about your word, with a little girl already attentive to your statutes. Lord, help me to bring joy and life and excitement into studying the word together that it is not a duty in this family, but a delight and a time of celebration as we look upon your promises and your great deeds and works and see your Glory. Lord make this true in my house. Make it start with me. Put people in my life that will call me out on it. Put this desire on the hearts of other men near me and that we would follow this together. Let my wife know, through my actions and my life that Your are most important, that you are the center of all that I have, we have and that she, of all earthly relationships is treasured above all other earthly things and relationships. I am a busy man, who lacks focus. Help me to focus on loving You first Lord, then my wife, then others, and fill me with a love that does not end, that does not wear of doing good, but that seeks relationship, not isolation. Lord you are awesome above all things. Majestic and Mighty in all ways, your enormity fills my vision, blinds me, terrifies me. Lord, extend to me the grace that I would fear you, revere your, be awed by you at all times and that I would never tire of proclaiming your name. Lord, let me be a light, let me not fade, let me not disappoint you or waste another day of my life for the world, but to pursue you and to bring gain to your kingdom. In Jesus Name I pray that you would come in power. AMEN.

prayer over psalm 23

Lord, you are my shepherd, and I am but a dumb sheep. I can’t even make decisions on my own for my good, yet you put up with me. I need You, I need You. I love You and yet my actions, my life, my worries, my anxieties don’t reflect that in the dark times, even in the light times I struggle with what appears to me a lack of allegiance to you. Oh to let go of this world’s stuff and grab a hold tight to you, that is what I want. Lord I want nothing more than to honor you, but yet there seems to be something missing in me. Why do I look for a formula, for a list, for a method, for a way to know you other than what you have put forth. It seems to easy, yet it is so hard. Your free gift costs everything and yet cannot be received for payment. Lord help me know your acceptance, in the midst of my sin, my failure, my filth, that I can’t clean myself enough, can’t muster enough service to gain any acceptance than through your Son. Lord I fight with thoughts and deception that I cannot be yours, because I fail so often, my heart wanders, my mind becomes distracted, but You pull me back to you. Lord my dependence is upon you and you alone. Take away the voices of deceit that tell me that you could never love me, that I am never good enough, tricking me into thinking that this is what it is about. Because you could never love me for myself, but only for your Son, the glorious Christ. Help me to know you more as I desire to be closer and closer and lead my family closer. I want to be free, I want to be apart from my selfishness that rages inside me. catch me Lord, I fall sometimes, place me in the cleft of the rock and let me see your glory, such that I would shine. I don’t deserve it, I fear it, but I want to see it. I want to be awed by an overwhelming awe of who you are, by the greatness of you, to have you not able to be seen because your immensity fill my vision such that everything else falls away. Not as an escapist of this place, but that I would see and then turn and live like I know you, like I fear you, like I love you because you are an awesome God, who so often I put in a box, who so often I diminish as powerless against the problems in my life and yet, the truth, still abides that you set all in motion, your mouth spoke all into being, you tossed the stars into the sky, whom shall I fear? Why should I fret. Lord Come in Power and take this life that I hold out to you, FREE ME for your glory and give me grace to know you more and more. You alone do I want to live for, for you my God are great. Amen

So, I continue to be challenged. I think I found out some things today. I see things differently, kind of outside the filter. scary. Check out some of the sermons here on practical topics Mars Hill Church - Seattle. Freedom is challenging.

Some of what will and I have been discussing is true. My view is skewed to a legalistic bent, but where is that ok and not? It is always a heart issue. As soon as you define a boundary, you are right up against it. Why? I wish it wasn’t so, and I wish I had more time to blog, but as you can see, my template is messed up, so that has taken most of my time. I will leave that alone and get back to work at thinking and bloggin, today, has been too much thinking.

I believe I need to go to the reformission conference, I believe God told me that I needed to go there. He has made it possible, now I just need to get everything in line and see if I can get away from work next week for a day or 2.

more on that later. especially on what is going on with Jake, don’t let me forget, cuz that is awesome.

It’s not about me…

You know, I could really start, no, I should really start every blog post with that. It’s not about me. How often we make it about us. What do we make about us? everything. I’m in the middle of the book Blue Like Jazz by donald miller, and well, I love the book and I hate the book. I had already passed judgement on it by page 30, I didn’t like it, the author, I felt was too liberal, too, I don’t know, outside the box, I couldn’t see where he was coming from or going. My brother and alicia said to keep going, that it would make sense, and well, now I see.

I am challenged, challenged by the things I have subscribed to. Not about God, but about life and what is important. I am challenged by what my faith looks like and what I think it should be and what I think Christ wants from me and what I have actually given Him. Lord, make things clear.

back to work, but more later on this, I promise.