Life’s destination
Ever notice vacation always ends where it began?
Never really accomplishing, but really just noticing
Noticing that which is not permanent
Not for us anyway
Ever notice opportunity knocks when we don’t want to answer?
Never really revealing itself when WE find it fit
Finding us when we’re most content
At least that’s what we think
Ever notice all the tears when you leave a soon-to-be former home?
Only to be dried up and forgotten when we find our way
Our bags become closets and our travel becomes home
Our destination is now our life
Destination becomes extended vacation
Destination happens often at our inconvenience
Destination is never what we choose to be
But through it, we’re shaped to be who we become
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Key to a Red Butt
Falling: The Key to a Red Butt
As a youth director in Florida, it is almost an underlying requirement that I take my youth group skiing at least once-a-year. This is often the only season that many of the Floridians ever see as Florida has two seasons: warm spring and hot summer. This is also some of the only “terrain” that many of these kids ever see as Florida is not known for its dangerous terrain.
It is this terrain that forces me, the guy in charge, to stay very close to the base of the mountain so that I can keep an eye on every stretcher that comes down the mountain and to be near when and if someone has a scratched elbow, bruised knee, or bloody lip. It is a combination of being the guy in charge and the terrain that has made me not be a very good skier at all. In fact, after 4 years, I have only been off the bunny slope and on the chair lift once. I am so bad that I was offered my money back by one of the ski school instructors in Wolf Laurel, NC. There is a running joke within the youth group that as long as you can ski better than Rob you can come back the next year. So far every youth has been allowed back the next year.
On these retreats, we’ve gone every possible route you can go with Bible studies in keeping relative to the trip. I wish I could remember every one of them by heart, but I hate to admit: they weren’t that great. The one two years ago was, however. I don’t know why it was memorable, but it was. It could have been that this was the first year I didn’t have a kid get hurt or that I learned to snowboard instead of ski or even that everyone who attended complained very little (a new experience for any youth minister). Whatever it was, God spoke.
We started out staying in a local inn that faced the much nicer inn from the previous year. Okay maybe there was some complaining. Upon arrival I, the guy in charge, had to run and get rental forms, room reservations, and directions all before everything closed in 45 minutes. I was making good headway until all of a sudden; I decided to catch a piece of ice with my foot running up and down flights of stairs. I was sent tumbling over the bottom rail and right into a bush. Thankfully not many teenagers saw this, but it was a motel employee walking by who said it best, “you like playing with gravity don’t you?” This was all before we started the skiing and I all ready had a red butt.
When we finally made it to the first day of skiing on Beech Mountain, I was rather worn out from wearing to and fro (not to mention my experience with gravity the week before). One of the great things about skiing with Floridians is watching them walk around in their ski boots for the first hour. There is more falling in these first 60 minutes of walking than in 2 days of skiing. The truly beautiful thing about this time is that they get an understanding of gravity just a bit more. A carefree gait turns into a very frail and wary creep as they discover their new boundaries with walking.
However, it was once the skis were on and most of them hesitantly made their way to the bunny slope wobbling here and there grasping for non existent embrace that I discovered what the inn employee really meant by “playing with gravity.” These kids (both young and old-you got to have chaperones) were breaking free of the earlier learned boundaries of walking and were now rediscovering that one constant that has always been there: gravity.
Parents watch as their babes discover gravity as they stand and fall and then stand
again. The elderly discover gravity as their bodies become more and more pulled toward the ground with it. Pilots defy it constantly and sky divers embrace it. However, it is with skiing that one really learns to play with it. As these students make 2 or 3 runs on the bunny slope, some other experienced kid convinces them that they can make a run on this slope or that slope a bit higher up the mountain. The progression continues for most as they make it to the top or end up sitting with me at the bottom with the regret of a bruise (to the body or to the ego). Regardless, that progression continues until everyone at some time has truly played with gravity.
God, too, asks us to play with Him, to treat Him like gravity, to test your limits in Him. As the Alpha and Omega, is He, too, not a constant? Is He, too, not often realized at certain parts of life? A parent feels His embrace when a child is born, walks, or speaks for the first time. That parent may not realize it, but those chills on the back of his or her neck provide proof of God’s presence. An elderly person embraces God more and more upon the realization of his or her mortality as spouses, friends, and eventual selves grow closer to entering the church triumphant. Military men and women embrace His existence every day as their lives hang in the balance. However, it is those of us who live every day lives who need to rediscover God every day in some way.
Psalm 8:3-4
I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
The Message
When reading that, one can only stand back and take in the awe splendor that is our creator. However, we read in Matthew 18:3 that we are to become like children in entering the kingdom of heaven. What is it that children do? They discover, they explore, and they ask for more.
Remember watching your little brothers, sisters, cousins, children, or just other babies lie on their back and watch the ceiling fan go around and around? Remember tossing them up in the air and back down without a care in the world from them? Remember when you were a child and you spent hours playing with a bug or making a mud pie or trying to blow every daffodil on the block?
Why did that child stare at the ceiling fan? Why did that child not worry about you dropping him or her? What was so great about that bug or pie? The fan was nothing special, at least not to us. We would have been scared to death if someone 8 times our size was throwing us up wouldn’t we? You can’t even eat the mud pie and bugs are gross, right? Now, do you see why God asks us to have faith like a child?
Imagine if we took the language of Psalm 8 and really were in awe of the creation around us. Imagine if we had so little care in the world that we would let Him catch us when we were falling. Imagine enjoying the simple things in life again rather than being so caught up in schedules, deadlines, and gas prices. That would kind of be like playing with gravity.
That would be playing with God.
As a youth director in Florida, it is almost an underlying requirement that I take my youth group skiing at least once-a-year. This is often the only season that many of the Floridians ever see as Florida has two seasons: warm spring and hot summer. This is also some of the only “terrain” that many of these kids ever see as Florida is not known for its dangerous terrain.
It is this terrain that forces me, the guy in charge, to stay very close to the base of the mountain so that I can keep an eye on every stretcher that comes down the mountain and to be near when and if someone has a scratched elbow, bruised knee, or bloody lip. It is a combination of being the guy in charge and the terrain that has made me not be a very good skier at all. In fact, after 4 years, I have only been off the bunny slope and on the chair lift once. I am so bad that I was offered my money back by one of the ski school instructors in Wolf Laurel, NC. There is a running joke within the youth group that as long as you can ski better than Rob you can come back the next year. So far every youth has been allowed back the next year.
On these retreats, we’ve gone every possible route you can go with Bible studies in keeping relative to the trip. I wish I could remember every one of them by heart, but I hate to admit: they weren’t that great. The one two years ago was, however. I don’t know why it was memorable, but it was. It could have been that this was the first year I didn’t have a kid get hurt or that I learned to snowboard instead of ski or even that everyone who attended complained very little (a new experience for any youth minister). Whatever it was, God spoke.
We started out staying in a local inn that faced the much nicer inn from the previous year. Okay maybe there was some complaining. Upon arrival I, the guy in charge, had to run and get rental forms, room reservations, and directions all before everything closed in 45 minutes. I was making good headway until all of a sudden; I decided to catch a piece of ice with my foot running up and down flights of stairs. I was sent tumbling over the bottom rail and right into a bush. Thankfully not many teenagers saw this, but it was a motel employee walking by who said it best, “you like playing with gravity don’t you?” This was all before we started the skiing and I all ready had a red butt.
When we finally made it to the first day of skiing on Beech Mountain, I was rather worn out from wearing to and fro (not to mention my experience with gravity the week before). One of the great things about skiing with Floridians is watching them walk around in their ski boots for the first hour. There is more falling in these first 60 minutes of walking than in 2 days of skiing. The truly beautiful thing about this time is that they get an understanding of gravity just a bit more. A carefree gait turns into a very frail and wary creep as they discover their new boundaries with walking.
However, it was once the skis were on and most of them hesitantly made their way to the bunny slope wobbling here and there grasping for non existent embrace that I discovered what the inn employee really meant by “playing with gravity.” These kids (both young and old-you got to have chaperones) were breaking free of the earlier learned boundaries of walking and were now rediscovering that one constant that has always been there: gravity.
Parents watch as their babes discover gravity as they stand and fall and then stand
again. The elderly discover gravity as their bodies become more and more pulled toward the ground with it. Pilots defy it constantly and sky divers embrace it. However, it is with skiing that one really learns to play with it. As these students make 2 or 3 runs on the bunny slope, some other experienced kid convinces them that they can make a run on this slope or that slope a bit higher up the mountain. The progression continues for most as they make it to the top or end up sitting with me at the bottom with the regret of a bruise (to the body or to the ego). Regardless, that progression continues until everyone at some time has truly played with gravity.
God, too, asks us to play with Him, to treat Him like gravity, to test your limits in Him. As the Alpha and Omega, is He, too, not a constant? Is He, too, not often realized at certain parts of life? A parent feels His embrace when a child is born, walks, or speaks for the first time. That parent may not realize it, but those chills on the back of his or her neck provide proof of God’s presence. An elderly person embraces God more and more upon the realization of his or her mortality as spouses, friends, and eventual selves grow closer to entering the church triumphant. Military men and women embrace His existence every day as their lives hang in the balance. However, it is those of us who live every day lives who need to rediscover God every day in some way.
Psalm 8:3-4
I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
The Message
When reading that, one can only stand back and take in the awe splendor that is our creator. However, we read in Matthew 18:3 that we are to become like children in entering the kingdom of heaven. What is it that children do? They discover, they explore, and they ask for more.
Remember watching your little brothers, sisters, cousins, children, or just other babies lie on their back and watch the ceiling fan go around and around? Remember tossing them up in the air and back down without a care in the world from them? Remember when you were a child and you spent hours playing with a bug or making a mud pie or trying to blow every daffodil on the block?
Why did that child stare at the ceiling fan? Why did that child not worry about you dropping him or her? What was so great about that bug or pie? The fan was nothing special, at least not to us. We would have been scared to death if someone 8 times our size was throwing us up wouldn’t we? You can’t even eat the mud pie and bugs are gross, right? Now, do you see why God asks us to have faith like a child?
Imagine if we took the language of Psalm 8 and really were in awe of the creation around us. Imagine if we had so little care in the world that we would let Him catch us when we were falling. Imagine enjoying the simple things in life again rather than being so caught up in schedules, deadlines, and gas prices. That would kind of be like playing with gravity.
That would be playing with God.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
In the Meantime
There is no Mean Time
If you hurry up tomorrow
If you brush off yesterday
If you can’t look today in the eye
Maybe you think “in the meantime”
If you borrow yesterday’s time
Compare today to what used to be
If you dread tomorrow’s passing time
Maybe you think, “in the meantime”
If you think today’s the best you’re going to get
If you think tomorrow’s not going to be much better
If you made no difference from this and yesterday
Maybe you think, “in the meantime”
If you think “in the meantime, I lived yesterday”
If you think, “in the meantime, I’ll live today”
If you think, “in the meantime, tomorrow will be”
Maybe you’re thinking needs changing
Yesterday’s happenings prepared you for today
Today’s ponderings prepare you for tomorrow
Tomorrow’s not to be lived out too soon
For my friend, there is no “in the meantime.”
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Broken Through
I AM Has Broken Through
My people have waited through the ages
They’ve said we weren’t Kosher enough
They’ve said we spoke the wrong languages
They said our skin was too dark or life too rough
Our hair too long, we weren’t part of the few
That was until I am broke through
Peter didn’t want to eat it
It wasn’t Kosher enough
His fear of doing wrong
Had pushed him this far
Just then, the 3 men
Father, Son, Holy Spirit?
The great I am has come
Cornelius, the great general, is headed this way
They shouted in unison, loud and strong
A great man is he, a follower of YHWH
They said his color and speech are all wrong
But he loves the I am and loves his neighbors
No matter what their size, shape, or colors
He plays no favorites they say
His love covers east and west
His arms spread in every way
No more us, them, and the rest
We are no longer part of the few
Thank you God for breaking through
Friday, December 4, 2009
End of Story, Beginning of Chapter
3 weeks from now, we begin a new moment in life. Our stories in Vero Beach come to an end, but a new beginning unfolds. It has been bittersweet to say the least. It is so easy to get caught up in the romanticized idea of school and simply reorganize our lives. However, I believe the organization of our lives begins with how we leave this. If it was easy, it wouldn't be called a leap of "faith." On Wednesday, we discussed the wise men and how they probably walked for months before Jesus was even born. Each, individually, came from a different part of Asia (or so we assume from "The East") and each had to walk through the Middle East (which we know has a lot of desert). It is hard to imagine walking for months, sometimes alone, through the desert to a place unknown. When they arrive, who do they speak to first, but the king. Most of us would be honored simply to know the king and to speak to the king. However, they weren't impressed and actually shared the gospel right then and there. When they finally reach "THE KING," they deliver gifts specifically from where they came: parts of who they were.
Here Tracy and I are, walking to a new area of our lives, looking for a king, trying to find His will months before we have to, walking across a desert, telling anyone who asks why we are doing it, and won't stop until we share our gifts with the king.
As this story continues, is that not the true story of all of us? Are we not desert wanderers seeking truth and finding it is not as easy as it seems. For did the Magi not find the beginning of their journey at what was supposed to be the eventual goal?
That is my robservation at least.
peace
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