It's a girl!!

We just got back from the doctor where we finally had our ultrasound, and once again it's a girl! It was so cool to be able to watch her move around. At one point she was sucking on her thumb and it was so stinking cute. Hannah got to be there with us and see her sister for the first time. She thought it was pretty neat, especially when the baby tried to suck on her toes. She asked me again when the baby was coming out - I think she thought it was time. But she's excited. We called the grandmas and some other people and let Hannah tell everyone that she was having a sister. She keeps telling people that her name will be "Hello Kitty Thumbelina". Pretty sweet name. She is going to be a great sister, and I can't wait to watch them grow up together. It's kind of funny that we are having a girl - I swear that I don't know anyone who has had a boy. I'm not even sure baby boys exist anymore. I'm sure someone, somewhere is having a boy - so I better get prepared. I better buy more guns...

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Good one God

I've been reading the Thomas a Kempis classic The Imitation of Christ. I think God must laugh sometimes at how clever he is. He will often put things in my path to read, to watch, to hear that speak directly into a situation that I am currently dealing with. Chapter XVI of this book is entitled "Dealing with the Faults of Others." I have been recently involved in a conflict between two parties, where one of those parties seems to be unwilling to seek reconciliation. They simply want to attack and destroy. And I'll be honest, that makes me want to say "screw it" and to just respond in like kind. At any rate, I read this chapter this morning:

"Until God ordains otherwise, a man ought to bear patiently whatever he cannot correct in himself and in others. Consider it better thus - perhaps to try your patience and to test you, for without such patience and trial your merits are of little account. Nevertheless, under such difficulties you should pray that God will consent to help you bear them calmly.

"If, after being admonished once or twice, a person does not amend, do not argue with him but commit the whole matter to God that His will and honor may be furthered in all His servants, for God knows well how to turn evil to good. Try to bear patiently with the defects and infirmities of others, whatever they may be, because you also have many a fault which others must endure.

"If you cannot make yourself what you would wish to be, how can you bend others to your will? We want them to be perfect, yet we do not correct our own faults. We wish them to be severely corrected, yet we will not correct ourselves. Their great liberty displeases us, yet we would not be denied what we ask. We would have them bound by laws, yet we will allow ourselves to be restrained in nothing. Hence, it is clear how seldom we think of others as we do of ourselves.

"If all were perfect, what should we have to suffer from others for God's sake? But God has so ordained, that we may learn to bear with one another's burdens, for there is no man without fault, no man without burden, no man sufficient to himself nor wise enough. Hence we must support one another, console one another, mutually help, counsel, and advise, for the measure of every man's virtue is best revealed in time of adversity - adversity that does not weaken a man but rather shows what he is."

I love the one line that says to try and bear with the defects of others, because you have many faults of your own that other people have to deal with. I admit that I often want to hold people to such a standard that I myself am not willing to be held to. The last line of this chapter says "the measure of every man's virtue is best revealed in time of adversity - adversity that does not weaken a man but rather shows what he is." Wow. Ok God, I get it.

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Senior Supper

So last night was our first Senior Supper of the new school year. It's a time for us to hang out with our seniors and talk to them about leadership and to help create a vision for our group that they can have some ownership over. It was a good time. It's exciting for me that we have so many committed seniors this year. Their love for God is amazing, even challenging for me. They are hungry for knowledge. We sat around afterwards and talked about prayer, how we hear God's voice, why we pray in groups sometimes, and stuff like that. It was just a great time. This Wednesday we will be talking about that whole concept - hearing God's voice. The experience I had where my 3 year old daughter asked me why she never hears God's voice will be a great starting point for that conversation. My friend Jordan and I are planning on simply having a conversation about this idea in front of our students, urging them to join the conversation. I think it will be a fun change from the feeling of a traditional sermon or whatever, a lot less about lecture and a lot more about discovering together.

In other news, the Angels magic number sits at 5. We're taking our group to the game on Friday night so it would be really cool to be there when they clinch the Western Division. I don't know if they'll make it until Friday though. Unfortunately they will probably wrap that all up before then. But I'm holding on to hope!

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Sunday

Yesterday was a busy day. We had a fairly normal morning, but I was doing a ministry spotlight of the high school group. I told the church about last week's car wash for Pastor Idelfonso (San Felipe), and about how we were able to raise $2000 for a car for he and his family. We also showed a video from our trip to South Africa. It's always fun to be able to show off our ministry to the church. I am thankful that our church allows us to do the things we do. I went to lunch with the usual gang of high school guys - they keep me laughing all the time.

I spent a couple of hours during the afternoon preparing for Sunday night's service - where we got the chance to share about our trip to South Africa. It ended up being a pretty cool night. We showed pictures, taught the congregation a song we learned, and shared stories of how God did amazing things in and through us. I was blessed by the support of our congregation and the desire to hear about the things our students experienced. Afterwards a bunch of us went to Denny's and hung out with our YWAM leader who had come up for the evening service. We had a great time. I finished the night off with a few episodes of "The Office" and it was a great day.

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A Dream

My dreams are usually nonsense. They have little to do with reality. At the time they seem rational, but when I wake up and think about them I often laugh at how silly they really are. There are some dreams that feel like dreams, and some dreams that feel very real. On some occasions I have woken up from dreams and had to think about whether or not what just happened was real or not. I had one of those dreams this week. It was a terrible dream.

There wasn't much to the dream, no real plot or story that happened. In real time, I suppose the events that happened in my dream would have all happened in about 30 seconds. But I was riding my bike up a trail with someone else (who I can't remember), and my daughter was riding behind me. I remember thinking I needed to stay between her and the edge of the trail because she could fall. For some reason I got slightly in front of her as we pulled up to stop. At that point I turned around to see her steering her bike in the direction of the edge. I yelled for her to stop (though she didn't have much control of her bike) and reached to grab her. I touched her, but wasn't able to grab her. At that point she fell. I had this vivid picture of her falling down a sheer cliff - hundreds of feet below. It was absolutely horrifying. I screamed in my dream "NOOOOOO!!!" But there was nothing I could do.

I immediately woke from the dream and was eternally grateful that it was just a dream. My daughter was in the bed with us, and I just threw my arms around her and kissed her as she laid there asleep. I couldn't shake that dream all day yesterday, and it still haunts me now. My wife and I talked about it a bit last night. We realized that we both share these fears that something terrible could happen to one of us, or to our children. To be honest it's a fear that I have carried for some time. The thing about that moment in the dream when my daughter fell - there was such an overwhelming feeling of loss and helplessness. I felt as though I could have stopped it from happening but now there was nothing I could do about it. I think that's a fear I carry as a man. I'm wired to want to provide and protect. When I am unable to do that I feel incredibly helpless. So whether it's my wife being sick, or simply being uncomfortable from pregnancy, or the bills piling up and feeling like there isn't any money to simply enjoy life with, I hate feeling like I'm not in control. I hate feeling like life is happening and there's just not anything I can do about it.

That's where obedience to God is tough for me. I really want the assurance that if I do what he wants me to do - that he will take care of me and the ones that I love. I want to know that life just works if you do x, y, and z. Unfortunately God doesn't give us that assurance. I mean there are kids I know who have lost parents recently. There are parents who have lost babies. How do we make sense of this? How would I make sense of this in my own life? A deeper personal question is what does this fear reveal about me? Why do I need control? Why do I need this kind of assurance? Why should I be immune from this kind of thing happening to me? I realize that I am still far from having the kind of faith that I read about in the Bible. The story of Job baffles me. How can a man respond the way Job did to his whole family being taken from him? "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away - blessed be the name of the Lord."

If I'm totally honest - I never want to have to demonstrate that kind of faith. I don't want to be the one who has that testimony. I don't want to experience that. I'm sure that reveals something about me, an area of my life that is still not under the lordship of Christ. I also wonder if it reveals a certain view of God that I have that may not be true. I sometimes feel like if I tell God that I don't want something to happen, that it will therefore happen. It's almost like he is going to do the very thing that I pray he won't. That doesn't sound like a good, loving, gracious God. Why do I have that view of Him at times? I totally view God as a God of love and grace and mercy, and yet in my own life I sometimes think of him as though he is a vindictive, irrational, mean-spirited Being. I realize the inconsistency. It's almost as though I know what is true, but in the back of my mind there's that "what if" question.

It just occurred to me that I have completely left out a serious player in all of this. Satan. I'm not one of those people that blame things on "the devil." I've heard people say that pretty much everything bad that happens is because of the devil, or Satan is trying to tear them down. I never do that. But I do think that when it comes to one's view of God, particularly in how he interacts and deals with me as an individual - it is certainly within the realm of possibility that Satan is trying to skew that. He would definitely love to get in my head and change the way that I think about God. He would love it to make me not trust this God. He would love it if I start to doubt his love for me, or his grace toward me.

At any rate, I don't really know if I'm coming to any conclusions here. I just needed to get that out and process my own thoughts really. I feel better though. I do know that I have a God that loves me, and he loves the ones that I love too. He loves them more than I possibly can. He wants good things for me as well and he is a good God. In the Psalms we often hear David begging God to rescue him from those that wish him harm. I wonder if David had some of the same fears I do? But he does this regulary, and yet he always concludes that God is good. Sounds like a good way to conclude this random rant as well - God is good.

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Prayer

My 3 year old daughter and I are home alone for the weekend - mom went away with the ladies of the family to the Women of Faith conference. So we were driving to pick up dinner (I said mom was away right?) and out of the blue she asks me "Dad, how come when I pray I don't hear God's voice?" Are you kidding me? This girl is 3 years old! It's funny how God places these moments in my life. I'm currently reading Kyle Lake's [re]Understanding Prayer. All summer long I've been learning and thinking about prayer. We've started a new prayer gathering that meets weekly. I'm in the middle of a teaching series on prayer based on James 5:16. I've been answering a lot of questions about prayer, and yet none as tough as the one that came from the mouth of a 3 year old.

Yet isn't that a question we all ask sometimes? Why don't we hear God's voice? I know I've asked the question. I've had the question asked of me. I've tried to answer it by quoting Scripture, waving my hands, using big words, and referring people to books. And yet, when you strip all of that away, and you break it down to the level of a three year old, what do you say? You keep it simple.

You start with "I don't know." That's a pretty freeing statement to be honest. There's a mystery to it that can't be explained. I know there are explanations, but in the end it's all a mystery. I love that about God. I can't figure him out, I don't know how He works. Isaiah 55:8-9 says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (NIV). As much as I want to give my daughter concrete answers, I have to start with the fact that I don't know.

But in spite of the fact that I don't know, I am confident of the fact that God does speak to His children. I told her the story of Samuel, who continually hears the voice of God and doesn't know it is God. He thinks it is Eli. The thing about Samuel is that though he had never heard the voice of God before, he was in a place where he would be able to hear Him when He did speak. He was with the Ark of God. I wonder if that is part of the problem. How many of us want to hear the voice of God, but want Him to speak on our terms? How are we preparing ourselves to hear His voice? Anyway, she liked that story, and it seemed to help her a bit. I told her that she should never stop listening for God's voice. I told her that she needs to keep talking to God and that He will talk to her, and eventually she will hear his voice. The thing about God's voice is that it doesn't sound like other voices. It's often described as a still, small voice. I tried to explain it to her as a voice you hear on the inside.

I've always assumed that the thoughts of a three year old centered around Dora the Explorer, chicken nuggets, and coloring books. And yet today I have to believe that the question that came from her heart can only mean one thing - God is already speaking to her.

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