Had a good talk with my friend Scott Parr this morning, and it solidified for me something that God is trying to remind me of: that He is regularly speaking to me through life, through people, through scripture...
Not a new idea for me, but I think over the past few years, I've felt just confused enough about life and just hurt enough by its events to feel a bit abandoned by God and to stop believing in practicality that He's going to break into my world with any regularity. Notice how I said that - "my world"... I think He's reminding me that it's not my world, it's His. I've been so stressed and disappointed by the way life is going in "my world" that I've been fairly unable or unwilling to listen to what God might be telling me about His world through it all.
Ok, I have a tendency to make blanket statements like that... I haven't been completely shut off from listening to God's voice for the last few years, but I think the majority of my time has been spent letting my mind be constantly thinking, thinking, thinking about the here and now, and I've had a big drought of devoting time to stopping and listening. Not writing much is a symptom of that. Bouts w/ mild depression and such things are, at least partially, symptoms of that. We're made to pay attention to what God is saying to us on a daily basis.
Because here's the thing I'm in the beginning stages of remembering - the things God says to us are absolutely, unequivocally life-giving. God is in the business of leading us into abundant life - not necessarily comfort, happiness, "success"... abundant life, which I think includes an inner peace that knows inner worth bestowed by God's mercy, even when comfort, happiness, and success don't seem anywhere within reach.
God's words... I think it's easy as a pastor, whose "business" is God's words, to lose the sense of awe and wonder that's appropriate for the fact that the God of the universe speaks to me intimately. But in this moment, I'm wanting to lay down all the things I tend to use to fill up my time and my thoughts, because I'm getting little tastes again of what it's like when God breathes new life and hope into "my world." It's making me hungry, and I want to get hungrier and hungrier.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
something new
OK, I'm tired of coming to visit my old blog periodically and seeing the same post at the top for the last 2+ years.
I just reread every post in preparation for sharing my life story at our pastoral staff meeting tomorrow at my new church, in my new town (Pleasant Hill) in my new state (California). Well, actually those things aren't all that new anymore, but a lot happens in two and a half years... what can I say?
I'm struck by how much I like a lot of things about the (at least nominally) creative and reflective person who wrote all this stuff a few years ago... oh, he was way too self-involved and made a lot of the same mistakes over and over again, and knew nothing about wine and acted like he did (living near Napa Valley has taught me a lot more, but I still act like I know more than I do)... but anyway, at least that guy was stopping periodically to reflect on what was going on, to try to listen to what God was saying in the midst of it, to try to verbalize it in a way that might possibly resonate with someone who cared to read it. I like that he was reading some good books, listening to some good music, and then trying to write some words and some notes and rhythms of his own that might contribute to... well, something.
I won't beat myself up for not blogging over this last chunk of time. The last 3 years have been very full, and have been very different from and much more painful than the 24 or so that came before, and I'm still deep in the process of learning how to healthily live in the midst of that. I'm not sure if blogging will be much a part of that healthy process, as I still find that the best place to take some of my deepest thoughts (after God) should be Sarah, and I also find that more and more of the things I might want to process are not necessarily wise to post for all to see. But at the same time, I like many of the things that blogging meant for me a few years ago. I want to start reflecting on the craziness of the world I live in a little more again, to be a little (or a lot) better at listening to God in the midst of it, and to see if I still have anything to say that might be useful to random people in the blogosphere.
So who knows? I may write again tomorrow, or I may let this post sit at the top of the screen for another few months. Who knows? But as I sit here thinking about it, up late because I'm being forced by this silly task of telling my story to my friends and coworkers to reflect a little more deeply into how I'm feeling about my life's arc so far... as I think about that, and how I'm not quite as happy right now (for a few different reasons) with how that life's going as I have been in the past... well, maybe this is something I need to commit to doing. Let's see how it goes.
I just reread every post in preparation for sharing my life story at our pastoral staff meeting tomorrow at my new church, in my new town (Pleasant Hill) in my new state (California). Well, actually those things aren't all that new anymore, but a lot happens in two and a half years... what can I say?
I'm struck by how much I like a lot of things about the (at least nominally) creative and reflective person who wrote all this stuff a few years ago... oh, he was way too self-involved and made a lot of the same mistakes over and over again, and knew nothing about wine and acted like he did (living near Napa Valley has taught me a lot more, but I still act like I know more than I do)... but anyway, at least that guy was stopping periodically to reflect on what was going on, to try to listen to what God was saying in the midst of it, to try to verbalize it in a way that might possibly resonate with someone who cared to read it. I like that he was reading some good books, listening to some good music, and then trying to write some words and some notes and rhythms of his own that might contribute to... well, something.
I won't beat myself up for not blogging over this last chunk of time. The last 3 years have been very full, and have been very different from and much more painful than the 24 or so that came before, and I'm still deep in the process of learning how to healthily live in the midst of that. I'm not sure if blogging will be much a part of that healthy process, as I still find that the best place to take some of my deepest thoughts (after God) should be Sarah, and I also find that more and more of the things I might want to process are not necessarily wise to post for all to see. But at the same time, I like many of the things that blogging meant for me a few years ago. I want to start reflecting on the craziness of the world I live in a little more again, to be a little (or a lot) better at listening to God in the midst of it, and to see if I still have anything to say that might be useful to random people in the blogosphere.
So who knows? I may write again tomorrow, or I may let this post sit at the top of the screen for another few months. Who knows? But as I sit here thinking about it, up late because I'm being forced by this silly task of telling my story to my friends and coworkers to reflect a little more deeply into how I'm feeling about my life's arc so far... as I think about that, and how I'm not quite as happy right now (for a few different reasons) with how that life's going as I have been in the past... well, maybe this is something I need to commit to doing. Let's see how it goes.
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