Homeconsistency is not my middle name. since my surgery in late July and family camp shortly following after that, I haven’t been here at all. as usual, that isn’t to say that I haven’t been doing anything, on the photo phront =) it’s been very busy with quite a few production jobs for me to do and so I have been busy doing that, working my real job and being a dad, a husband, friend, computer geek, etc.
My focus this year has been on family worship, even before family camp, I was influenced that I needed to start doing this on a regular basis and most weeks, we have family worship 6 nights a week. We might miss here and there due to late bed times or extenuating circumstances, but each night we read and sing and pray together as a family while we sit together, usually on our bed. It’s a cool time and it’s fun to watch their minds work and for them to ask questions and for them to see things that we don’t and for them to get excited about things that are new.
I won’t make any promises to be here more. my busy-ness dictates that some things have to fall off the plate and this is just one of those things. One thing that I am working to put in my schedule is a weekly escape for a couple hours to read and pray and listen. I’m so busy that I don’t do this, but I realize how much it is needed. Not only on a weekly basis, but on a daily basis to some extent. So often we think about the things we have to do. read our bible, pray, serve, evangelize, etc. Yet we often miss just being. We aren’t Christians because of what we do, but because of what HE has done. He has saved us and enabled us. He invites us to join Him in His work and so it is not “we have to do this or that” but “we get to do this or that”. God has made it so that we desire Him and to be a part. We often mess this up by what we are taught and what we see because so many are performance based in religion, like the pharisees were and so the mark is set by what you do, not by what God has done. If we spent more time considering and being awed by what God has done and not what we have done, then we might actually see what it is that God has placed before us to join Him in rather than all the duty we get wrapped up in. Not that all those things we think we have to do aren’t good or need to be done, but our heart about them, my heart specifically, needs to change so that I hunger and desire and delight rather than carry them out in somber duty. Like John Piper’s story about an anniversary night going home to get his wife. He arrives at the door, rings the door bell and presents his wife with roses. She responds “you shouldn’t have”. He responds back ” oh, but I had to, it was my duty and I always carry out my duty”. This removes the specialness of the event. But if rather he responded “I know I didn’t have to, but I couldn’t help it, it is my delight and nothing would delight me more than seeing you smile and delighting you this way and giving you joy.” That recount is not exact, but it sticks with me. I am a duty bound person who hasn’t fully realized that my true duty is not the work but the delight. without the joy and delight, duty is death.
I regress. I’m busy, busy, terribly busy, you’ve no idea what I have to do (veggie tales). and such busyness can kill a person. So I am working to balance and make things less busy yet again and spend time where it needs to be spent and so on and so forth. that means I am not here much. but that’s ok if that’s what I need to do. an encouraging word here and there is likely to pop out, but overall, I’m attempting to attend to those things that are most important. Like Martha and Mary. Martha worked and Mary sat at Jesus feet. Martha’s focus on work wasn’t evil, but like me, she was anxious and troubled over many things and busy, yet Mary chose the better portion which would not be taken from her. Martha missed that opportunity to be in the presence of the Lord on earth, His time there was to be short. May I not be so busy and task minded to miss the opportunity to be at his feet before He returns.
peace to you.
tom