meditating on John 15 this week.

abide. bear. ask. love. joy. glorify.

amen - "let it be" so in my life

surprise: afternoon breakdown

funny thing happened today (this is me being very honest with y'all). Field of Dreams was on tv. it's a pretty good movie - some funny dialogue about and monologues about how amazing and strong baseball is - but overall, a pretty good movie.
then the father/son scene comes up. "ease his pain." what a moment of reconciliation. the son sees the father in a way he never has before. he sees his very image in him. he recongizes their similarity in a way he never thought about before. these thoughts all came on the heals of thinking about looking at things from God's perspective.
As his sons, just about all of our time is spent struggling to see through our small eyes. we're stuck on this one-dimensional plane called humanity. so easily we forget that God sees all. everything that happens - he ordains because it plases him. we forget that we are his sons and daughters who are stuck in sin everyday. we get so caught up in our life and struggles that even when we have a chance to see the Father - we don't want to. we'd rather keep our man-centered perspective than look through God's eyes at our decisions and joys. oh the struggle of seeing us in God's likeness now and not his image. yet - we can still see through pure eyes...
because God was pleased to crush his Son on the cross on my behalf, i have no choice but to look heavenward and await his glorious return on a white horse. my only good response to Jesus death is life-long thanksgiving, obedience, and service. he gave his life so we could be free.
look your Father in the eyes, "ease his pain" - the pain born at the cross - by making the cross a worthy burden to carry through a lifelong pursuit of holiness in Christ.
thank you Heavenly Father for providing me with an earthly father who provides in so many ways - even though i fail to see it so many times...

Preparation

Before you knew
I would come
You prepared for me

After I came
A shift in life
So much so –
only later I’ll know
You prepared me

The skin of Father
you bore everyday
The weight so great
of sons soon to be
three
You grew
and are growing
us to be
Men who stand
Up as righteous
in God’s sight
and man’s, to
lend hands to ours
- one day will be
Sons of sons
of the father who
paved the Way
for me

You prepare me to be
a man among men
for all the world to see
and your Kingdom scene


Thanks, Dad.

today, i stared at two scenes for quite some time. number one: a red-breasted bird wiry with energy, hopping about the grass in no particluar pattern and with no apparent goal. number two: a sprawling oak tree set against a bright blue cloudless sky - just lit from the right side by the glow of the sun. a serene scene as i stared up at it, my back on nature's green carpet. a ton of atmosphere per square inch pouring down on me, yet complete freedom in thought. i laid and watched the tree, grown every which way - decades upon decades of storms and seasons. ins and outs, branches and limbs attach leaves to trunk to roots. so seemingly random, yet never ceasing in its treeness. God made the tree to be a tree, for whatever reason. it seems to make the most sense to me that God, as creator delights in the very act of creating and in this tree i could see God's desire to create bark and leaf and photosynthesis for the purpose of pleasing him. That little bird, just hopping around - that pleases the Lord, and simply because he made it, it is good. to think that the God who delights in even the sparrows raw energy takes a delight in me and my life. trees give home to sparrows. beauty - simple beauty. witness - witness i'll be.

it's a funny thing. you're reading what i've been thinking. not only that, but you're reading what i was thinking at one time on a medium that doesn't really exist - in the age old writing way i mean. really - this is just 1's and 0's - welcome to the new method of communication where we can sound like idiots and misunderstand each other over farther distances than ever before.

1st blog - just about as dumb as i thought it might be