and I looked twice and then walked away because no matter how many recipes I have for wind none of them really work, I have tried making it with my mouth, blowing really really hard but it was not enough to knock you down and turn you over, you see, and so walking away and talking to God about you seems like the best solution
for us
for now
2.
Janessa came with questions
beautiful beautiful questions
sleeping on my orange futon and on the veranda, if you can call it that, all ripped up and unpainted with that hole filled door
delighted to be a part of Joash and I and Brooke and Sarah
Life has been different here, Marvin leaves for Mission Bible Training today, a rehab up North, saying he'll stay as long as God asks but is hoping he can leave sooner rather than later. I feel the same way I felt when he went under the water a few weeks ago claiming Jesus and Lord. It was at that moment, one of those kind of moments that you just know God is really real.
Prayer is coming a live for me as well as God's calling in Acts, the bit about being DEVOTED to prayer and ministry of the word. Prayer is the ministry. Meeting with God is the ministry. Learning Him to become like Him is the ministry. And I want to make one thing clear, nobody needs candles or guitars and music or dim lights to worship. worship, I am learning it's a lifestyle. And when it is a lifestyle your heart starts folding over and your face looks a different and your step is lighter. I am still learning how to make all of this about God, and how to love my neighbor in the way I love myself because I am pretty selfish most of the days. And I am learning little things, like a way to love better is just to listen and to sit and really look at the one person in front of you. Quit trying to love everyone all at once, I keep learning. It doesn't work that way, God gives specific people to love, and we don't have to make everyone happy, only God happy and He will really mess up a life for the better I tell you what.
it's simple, Im learning how simple it is to love
bike riding with little David or teaching Melissa that she's a great artist even if she doesn't like what she sees on the paper. It is not about what we create, and I so often think it is. It is about the unseen things. Everyone gets so frustrated because no one can define love, but that is because it isn't something that can be seen, only learned and known and lived. And that's how it is with God too. He wants to be learned and known and lived. He says
my yoke is easy
my burden is light
and its almost like most of the time we were looking for a burden to put on so it looked like we were actually doing something instead of filling up our time with praying for the hearts of joe and dean and marie and martin and Jules
who is in the hospital by the way because her body is wasting away because the only thing she is depending on is vodka
I have realized that we all have little idols
little things we dont want to give away or can't give away. But like Paul I want to call it all rubbish for the sake of Christ.
He's teaching me that he is real and that it is worth it, you'd think I'd know by now but I have to keep learning that I dont want more stuff and that everything i do have and say and think and do should behind it have a testimony of who He is.
So, sometimes I think that means getting rid of everything because a lot of what we have is a distraction and Greg says uproot anything that does not make God pleased and that seems so easy but its so so hard because really really I am attached to way more than what I thought
but there is something about those verses about giving up all of your possessions and that rich young ruler walking away with sadness because he'd rather have had riches than Christ and I don't want to be that guy but I have faith issues I want to learn to live out of a theology of abundance because my Father is rich and will not withhold anything good from those that love Him (ps 34) He has such a messed up way of doing things, or maybe it is our way that is messed up, give to receive, love enemies, turn the other cheek, overcome evil with good-- these are not statements of the world.
so maybe we should start doing things a little backwards.
maybe the way we live should look a little strange.
maybe
strange
should
look
more
normal
and that is another thing I have been struggling with, this boiler room place I work at that is such a delight, it shouldn't be that mind boggling
I've been thinking that this place isn't that weird because all of our houses should be houses of prayer and should have doors that open to neighbors
Houses that claim Jesus as the one they serve should have constant worship, shouldn't they? shared meals? determination to love one another like they love themselves...
I want to understand why the boiler room stands out.
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