8 weeks.  So long.  So short.

Last fall several key people in my life began to have crucial conversations with me…

“Something seems off…”

“Where is your passion?”

“What do you see happening at church in the next 6-12 months?”

“Are you ‘burnt out’?”

It was hard to hear.  I worked hard over the last several years on myself and being a husband/dad.  I spent hours thinking, praying, talking, reading, etc.  During that time people said to me, “Your church may have to adjust to the new you.”  It never happened.  I never had someone say, “You have changed, what is going on.”

I should have noticed, but I was smack dab in the middle of it.

There was something off, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  I tried working remotely (coffee shops, Taylor University, home).  I prayed more.  I read different books and then nothing at all.  I even tried to change the clothes I was wearing.  Yes, I was desperate.

All the “doing” only made things worse.

Speaking for God the prophet Isaiah tells us:

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.”                Isaiah 30:15

and later:

“Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!”           Isaiah 30:18

Salvation through rest?  Come on!  I was raised, you were raised, to believe the harder we push the more we will achieve, the happier we will all be.

Except in God’s Economy things don’t work that way.  I needed to slow way down.  I needed to find that low gear.  I did.

This is just a piece of what I heard when I got quiet enough to listen.  For those of you interested, I will share a bit more this Sunday (July 31).  And as I open my journal I am sure I will share more here.

First, though a question:  What have you heard or learned in the past 8 weeks?  It should not be possible for us to go two months without drawing closer to God, without being silent long enough to hear him.

In case anyone asks, I wore a purple tie.

Yesterday I had the privilege to pray at the Indiana House of Representatives.  Representative Kevin Mahan attends our church and he extended the gracious invitation.  It was a unique experience for me.  It was like stepping into a different world.  One filled with rules and conventions which are alien to me.  In the midst of conversations was a deep sense of anxiety.

Many of you know our Representatives are at a stand still.  Without a quorum they are unable to do business.  Both sides have faced long days away from families, jobs and friends.  And that is where I got stuck.

Sometimes I think we forget that our representatives (at the local, state and national level) are human beings.  They are stressed.  They face long hours.  And most of them take their jobs very seriously.  They feel the weight of their convictions and decisions.

That is why I wore purple.  It is not my job to choose sides.  Red or blue.  The moment I do, I lose my voice as a pastor.  I get co-opted into the fray.  I am supposed to be a voice outside of it.

I ask that you join me in praying for our elected leaders.  And let’s try something different.  Let’s stop praying for them to change their minds or lose elections.  For just a little while, let’s pray for them as people.  People who have spouses, children and stress.  Perhaps then we will all become better.

Last Wednesday (1/26) was our first Prayer. meeting.  The point of these times is to pray.  Sometimes we will pray for each other.  Others we will pray for specific needs in the church.  This first time I simply invited everyone to pray.

I opened our time with prayer (seemed appropriate!) and I was surprised by the tears in my eyes.  I wasn’t sad.  Wasn’t overwhelmed.  I was simply crying.  We then spread throughout the room.  I was surprised that my eyes continued to be moist.  I was more surprised by the sniffles and noises of crying I heard throughout the room.  Then after about twenty minutes…

It just stopped.

Weird?  A bit.  Beautiful?  Definitely.

I was reminded why prayer is so important.  You see prayer is so much more than listing our requests, or even our praise, to God.  While those truly are prayer, there must be more- has to be more- to it all than that!

Prayer tunes our hearts to God.  We pause from the busyness of our schedules.  We turn off the noise.  And prayer has a way of pulling us closer to God’s will for us.  I am continually amazed how I can go into a time of prayer thinking one thing and come out changed.  My priorities change.  My opinions can be sharpened (or dulled).  I am more like the man God wants me to be.

The other night I was also reminded that when we pray in community… I mean all of us, not just someone up front praying and us responding with bowed heads… All of our hearts can be tuned to God, together.  I think this is what the tears represented, in part.  We were connected emotionally.  No words were shared between us.  We were simply praying together.

Father, tune my heart to yours.  And all of ours together.  Amen.

Well, it is day two of no school, Laura going in to work late and me working from home. I am thankful we still have power. I can appreciate the beauty of the snow cone that used to be my yard. And still I want to moan and complain a bit?!?

Is this just the way I am? We are? Human nature? Aim not completely sure. I find myself longing for the normalcy of last week, that at times I found completely uninteresting. I miss books in my office that, in all honesty, probably have a lay of dust on them. Why are we never satisfied?

I count, and recount, the good things in my life… And still moan and fuss for more…

Not today. I will choose to accept my snow-proclaimed house arrest and enjoy all the good it brings. And when we finally dig out I will choose to relish the things I took for granted when they were not covered in white.

http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20110114/LIFESTYLE/101140310/-A-new-age-Brady-Bunch-

http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20110114/LIFESTYLE/101140310/-A-new-age-Brady-Bunch-

my mom continually told me what she loved about me… Not just told me she loved me, but what she loved in me. It was never based in what I did and measured by acts and deeds which I’m sure informed her feelings in those moments. It was always based in who I was. These same things were things that she loved about her savior. She would tell of things that she loved about Jesus and then tell me those were the same things she loved and saw in me. It communicated very clearly to me the love she had for her Father and her love for me. It also told me who I was. I wasn’t defined by sin. A fresh word had been spoken about me… I was the very image of Christ. I would mess up and fall but the gospel that was shared with me by my mother was drawing, pulling, inviting me to my better self, my true self. Just as Paul continued to call Christ’s followers, saints, holy, and sanctified so that they knew that their identity was never in check when sin entered their hearts. My mother gave me that gift. The gift of knowing my true identity was always intact. The gospel to me was hearing who I really am and letting that pull me into a better future. “let us live up to what we have already attained.”

I was always running through windows and jumping out of doors
Hoping in the things that weren’t ever there and never seemed to be
Even when I smiled at her she looked at me like I was crazy
Never quite understanding that it was hope
You see hope tastes like wanting… Wanting better, or more, it’s not always pure
Not always right
It’s giving up on the present because we know right now is broken
Maybe hope will fix tomorrow
So I gave up on hope wanting now
Tired from looking for pennies in the cracks of the floor
Finding dust, dirt and bleeding finger tips

But hope is informed by her beauty… the beauty of what’s known
What’s been embraced through our aroused intimacy
When they come to take you away and empty you
Tell them you emptied yourself
For the beaten heart
Traded it for a beating heart
Risking pain for hope… hope that bleeds through wounds
Rooted deep beneath the tree of experience
Fading from green to red to orange to dead
Resurrecting with spring
But not before a long deep nothing
hope was there in pain only because now had to crash into not yet