Its gone to the dogs!

I've been sitting on the deck this morning just listening to what all is going on in the world.  I was listening to the rain fall in the darkness and the different noises it made as it fell on different surfaces.  I was listening to the flocks of black birds as they flew over on their trek south for the approaching winter.  I was also listening to the kittens as they chased their tails and each other all over the deck.  I was and still am listening to some calm music on the iPod.  I was excitedly listening to Cindy as she told me about her plans for the day.  And in the midst of all that I've even been listening to what Daddy is saying to me about all that I'm hearing this morning.  The ability to listen and hear is an amazing sense.  I've grown to appreciate it more and more over the last few years as I've learned to hear God's voice in the day to day experiences of life. 

The main thing that began to come to clarity this morning was the difference between my cats and my dogs.  We are blessed to have three of each ya know.  I really love the dogs and tolerate the cats or kittens, as they are now.  My favorite dog is doing what she loves the most even now... laying beside me in the recliner as I type this.  Her name is Bandit for those interested, she earned that name for two reasons.  1.  She has black mask around her eyes and 2.  She steals my heart with her love and devotion to me.  I rescued her last winter from behind Panera Bread in Conway.  She had been run over and was laying on the side of the street with the temperature hovering in the low 20's.  I put my gloves and coat on to pick her up and I'm glad I did.  She bit me more times than I could count as I moved her from the ground to the back seat of the truck.  It took over a week to get to the place of being able to pet her without being eaten.  I spent a lot of time just sitting in the floor beside her talking to her and giving her treats to let her know that she was safe and that I wasn't going to hurt her.  You're probably wondering why that's important to this blog and with that I'll convey what it is that Daddy was so excited to tell me this morning. 

Drawing, wooing... we use those words to describe our actions or the actions of another to gently and patiently convince another to come to us.  That's the first lesson He was reminding me of... that He is always drawing me to Himself.  Sometimes for some lap time, other times its for discipline, others for some direction, others for some teaching, and still other times just for the joy of being together.  That's an awesome testimony of God's work to me!  I, for so long viewed my relationship to Him as something official and devoid of emotion or feeling.  NOT ANYMORE!  I am so glad to be able to say that!  He's my Daddy and He loves spending time with me!  I hope you, the reader, can say the same thing or are at least coming to that place of realization. 

So why is it that I miss this drawing so often in my life?  That's where the difference between my dogs and cats began to sneak up on me.  Side-note... God's got another name that wasn't ever listed in the Bible... Jehovah-Sneaky!  He has this amazing way of sneaking some pretty cool truths into our lives from the simplest of things... sneaky I tell ya!  Anyway, back to my thought... Jackie, one of the other dogs rescued, our Jack Russel and Bandit were both sitting in my lap on the deck this morning and I was simply amazed at the attention they were paying to my movements.  They followed my hand with their eyes and when it stopped they would position their head near it for some scratching and loving.  Jackie just came and got in my lap again...  not because I called her but because its a place she loves to be.  This just keeps getting more juicy.  I am their master, their owner... the one they trust.  I've invested the time in them to make it so and they respond to me in a manner that brings a smile to my face.  The cats on the other hand are more interested in their own agenda.  They won't come no matter how I woo them.  They pause long enough from their endeavor to glance my way and then go back to playing.  The dogs have learned something the cats have not... the master's touch makes life better!  The scratching, the petting... its just awesome! 

Now I am faced with a stark reality in my life... there have been a lot of times when I was more like those cats than I was the dogs.  I am, however, learning the same lesson the dogs know... life is awesome when your in the Master's lap with His hands expressing the love that is flowing from His heart.  That's what His touch is all about... the manifestation of the love He has for me and you in His heart.  So what do I do with this revelation of sneakiness?  I press forward asking for an increased desire in my heart to spend time in Daddy's lap and I pray for ears to hear the voice of my Father as He draws my attention toward Him.  I can't dwell on the times that I missed the drawing because of my agenda or my soul will despair and that is counter productive to God's work in my life.  No!  I press forward with a new found desire to go boldly into Dad's throne room so I can sit in His lap and be loved on!  That is what steals His heart ya know.  Want to come with me?

Coming to and thru the crash!

I'm sitting on the couch this afternoon relaxing and restoring my other laptop because it crashed.  I don't know why it crashed it just did.  It was very inconvenient when it did and was frustrating too.  So while I was sitting here I began to think about how sometimes in life my whole system seems to crash and has to be restored.  That really got me to thinking which I know seems to be far fetched but it does happen from time to time.  I really enjoy sitting and thinking about all the different angles of life and even enjoy trying to go past the surface level of life to get to the deep motivations of the heart.  That seems to be what has me pondering this afternoon... What has led me up to my system crashes, and what differences did they make in my life.

I'll say right off that I think some of my crashes have been the greatest things in my life while others weren't so much.   What I really want to focus my heart on now is the good stuff I've gotten from them.  What's going through my mind is the life lessons I see between the two.  The first place my mind goes when I think about the computer crash is a lot the same as when my life crashes... what did I lose?  What if I can't get it back?  In this case I didn't lose anything significant because I haven't been using my laptop lately.  In life though, crashes usually mean the loss of relationships or at least some stress added to them.  I've had two of those crashes in the last 6 years.  They were very painful, frustrating, and awkward to say the least and not just for me.  I believe those feelings were mutual on both sides of the crash.  I realize a nugget of truth here... the documents that are most important are backed up and so are the deep meaningful relationships in my life.  They are backed up with a lot of time invested, grace extended, forgiveness applied, and love lavished from both sides.  That is after all what makes them the most important isn't it?

Another nugget of truth that is beginning to be uncovered is that there are times on my computer when all the old files begin to hinder and even stop the progress.  My hard drive is full and it will not hold any more information no matter how good it is, no matter how hard I've worked on the document... it just won't go forward.  That describes a lot of the things I've believed in my life.  Some of it was just junk and should have never been stored on my heart drive.  Some of it was good for the season of life I was in at the time and should have been removed when it's shelf life expired.  On the other hand some of it was core.  By that I mean it was just as valuable then as it is now.  It's value is deep because of the investment that was poured into it.  Where I've gotten into the trouble that brought me to the crash was that I was unwilling to dump the useless stuff or to get rid of the out of date stuff until it caused a crash.  That's where I am now... formatting my hard drive so that I can reload the operating system that will make it work the best.  That's what I realize as I look back on the things that God has asked me to leave behind.  It's not that it was all bad it was just keeping me from being the best me I could be.  Some of it was information that I had accepted as truth while some of it was people that I had aligned myself with.  I'll be clear that it wasn't that they were bad or wrong or anything like that... just that we we no longer going the same direction.  We are prone to do what has been called the crab effect.  When those around us try to go another direction we tend towards holding them back.  We do this in part because of concern for their well being, but the other part of that is we try to hold them back because their new found freedoms tend to make us uncomfortable and we don't like that so we do what the crabs do when one tries to crawl out of the cage... we grab hold and don't let go.  I know this because I've been on both sides of this dance and for both reasons.  If we continue to hold onto the old outdated information or choose to remain in the relationships where there is no unity then we cannot move forward on our journey making the statement, "One of the greatest hinderances to our current or future success is our past success."  This is also known as being in rut and the only difference between a rut and a grave is that one has the ends knocked out.  I would also add that when a system restore takes place in my life the goal is not to destroy the relationships with people from the past but I have come to realize that most of the time we as Christians are too shallow to remain in relationship with someone who doesn't see things exactly like we do.  This is to our great disadvantage but it is none the less a truth.

Man this process seems to be taking a long time!  The computer has come back up but now all the applicable drivers are being loaded and all the automatic updates are downloading and installing.  Then after that there will be the time spent loading the programs.  Thinking about that reminds me of what life looks like after one of those crash events.  Our last one, my family and I, led us to what we called the wilderness where we didn't really spend a lot of time in relationship with anyone for a period of three years.  This was a time of reflection just like I'm reflecting now on how I wish I would have taken a little time to clean off the old stuff so there was room for the new on the computer.  It was a time where I reflected on how I had related with the Church as an institution, how I had related to others based on what they believed or didn't believe... etc.  As I look back there are things that I noticed that were screaming for a change but I ignored them just like I ignored the slowing of the applications on my computer.  I can't go back and undo what is done so I don't waste time doing so, but I do learn to be more attentive to the signs now.  I become more attentive to the directions I need to be going and the ones I don't.

Another nugget that I am picking up is that my operating system has been updated.  I'm not the same as I was.  I don't think like I used to think.  I'm not focused on the things I used to be focused on.  I'm different and have to have a different operating system than I started with.  I need different programs than I used to as well.  I no longer do the same things I once did so I no longer need those programs on my hard drive or my heart drive.  Just as they take up unneccessary room on my computer they take up unneccessary room on my heart.  When my heart is full of the junk then I can't get the good, life giving stuff in that I need to continue forward. 

I should probably wind this thing down.  There are probably a lot of other truths or nuggets that a person could get out of this whole process and to be honest if you find yourself thinking about those then the whole purpose of this blog has been accomplshed.  Sometimes it takes the physical things in life to make us see the spiritual ones.  As much as I wish I could get this thing called life figured out and running smooth, deep down inside I know that its these crashes that cause me to slow down enough to see just how unbalanced my life has become so I can make the adjustments that will bring me back to a place of optimal performance.

Enjoy the journey!

Livin life together

I went on a kayaking trip this weekend with some people I've met through meetup.com.  These are people from different places and from different backgrounds.  As we sat around the fire talking I was simply amazed at our deep need to be accepted and a part of something larger than ourselves.  My background is that of pastoring churches for 14 years and trying to grow them.  What I've realized is that its not about trying to make everyone fit into the same mold, but rather allowing people to be who they are and encouraging them to find others in the church , in this case, who share the same interests as them and form relationships with those people instead of trying to fit in somewhere they weren't made to fit.  When we try to put others in molds that weren't made for them we rob them of their identity and in essence eradicate their gifts, talents, and abilities from ever becoming a benefit to the whole.  When we allow this to happen then we never become as strong a people as we can be. 

Life is about relationships!  Plain and simple.  I absolutely love being in the lives of other people and I love them being in mine.  I am a richer person because of the relationships in my life.