Beckham moves to Galaxy!

It is funny how a person can change. 5 years ago I would never even care one bit about soccer. That was before my daughter played and fell in love with soccer. Today she plays under 10 competitive soccer, soon to try out for U-11. So I was reading MyYahoo page this moring and when I saw the headline, Beckham will play for MLS' L.A. Galaxy, I called my wife and told her. Then I left a message with my sister, also a soccer fan. Not that long ago I remember listening to the Jim Rome Show and him talking about "Soccer Freaks" and agreeing with him. Here I am several years later on the sidelines of a soccer field cheering my daughter on and in a household that Tivo'd almost every single game of the World Cup. Something my daughter loves, has brought us to love something.

It is funny how you can often end up a location that you never intended on travelling toward. That brings me to my Jouney with God and I'm wondering what destination does he have me travelling toward. Sometimes it is hard to see where God has me on my journey because so often I get bogged down in the busyness of work and daily life that I forget to look up. I feel so saddled down with stress that I make no time for contemplation and reflextion. If I can just steal some time away, slow down and meet with him more regulary, all in life would be better.
I have plenty of time to notice soccer headlines regarding Beckham, but so often neglect what God wants me to discover.

What will be the next surprsining "Beckams" that are in my life. Will I be looking or for what God wants me to see or just distracted with the busyness and clutter? What does Jesus want me to focus on, or love, that I am missing?

New Year Wishes

I want to have a long list of new goals for the new year, but I don't. I want to say I am walking so close to Jesus, but I am not. I wish I could say I have a plan for the new year, but I can't.

I am just plain tired, weary and dry. I just need to cling to Jesus and his words: "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." Matthew 11:28-30

I feel beaten down and exhausted and I need to rest and refreshed by Jesus.

Can anyone else relate?

Where Am I now?

I was wondering through Borders tonight, looking at Christian books. I picked up the Message:Remix by Eugene Peterson and read through. the introduction and just longed and thirsted for the kind of relationship with Jesus, God's Living Word, that Peterson describes. My family was at Church at AWANA and I was alone. Lonely. I long for closeness with Jesus instead of busyness and exhaustion.

My soul feels dry and crusty and I need Jesus. I've let work crowd him out. I feel distant. I feel tired. I feel alone. I feel empty. I need Jesus, oh, I need Jesus.

It is the Christmas season, and I feel like the Grinch. I need to sit at Jesus' feet like Mary, instead of running around drained and sapped of all peace

Seeing Jesus as All We Need

How do I do this? I try to put my hope in a lot of different things: Work, People, Sports, blogs. It always comes up empty. I am reading a book called "We Would See Jesus" by Roy and Revel Hession. It really seems like God has led me to this book after so many things I have read this year point to Jesus as fulfilling all that I need. Now maybe that sounds odd, but I think it is easy to live what seems like the Christian life, without really trusting Jesus very much at all. There are versus such as John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." that I heard so many times but I didn't really get it, at least not fully. I have been learning more this year about Jesus than I had really known before. You can read the Bible and not see that Jesus is all through out it from the beginning. I had known the verses in Colossians that talk about how everything is tied together in Jesus, buit it was all head knowledge that I didn't fully understand:
Colossians 1:15-20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

During this past year or so I have read a lot from the Internet Monk about Jesus and his words really resonated with me in explaining Jesus in a more real way. Tw0 essays that really were meaningful and enlightening to me were "Is Jesus Truly the Point" and another called "A Conversation in God's Kitchen." I have also read Blue Like Jazz and am still reading Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller that have built on this theme of Jesus, particulary in moving away from formulas and more toward relationship with Jesus.

But getting back to We Would See Jesus, is the idea that Jesus can fulfill all of our needs, He is our salvation, Jesus is our I Am, he will be whatever we need. Now I don't mean wants turned into needs, such as needing the latest new car, technology gadget, etc. I mean deeper needs such as acceptance, love, friendship, forgiveness, and grace.

Maybe I have had my head in the sand or something, but I want to know Jesus more and want to look to him for all my needs. It is so easy to to get caught up in the noise of daily life and let the urgency of so many things crowd out Jesus. I pray I will See Jesus.

Rebuilder of Broken-down Walls

Jesus help me move ahead.
Help me to not feel powerless,
a victim of my life
Unable to move.
Stuck in stasis,
I do nothing.
Hiding from myself,
Hiding from God,
I become passive.
I shrink back.
I shirk responsibility.
I run away, play hide and seek with myself;
courage has left me.
Insipid timidity prevails,
where courage once triumphed.

Break the shackles,
free me from captivity
Throw out the lies,
don’t listen to the liar.
Embrace the truth,
That sets me free.
If the Son sets me free,
I will be free indeed.
Throw off the yoke of slavery,
Put on the yoke of freedom,
A yoke that’s light and easy.
Let Freedom ring
For Jesus came To set the captives free.
Set me free
Set me free.
Rebuild my broken down walls,
Rebuild my brokenness
Into your Oak of Righteousness
Replant me
Make me a display of your splendor.

Originally written January 19, 2006

When Will It Come.......

Soon it will be 6 years that I will have lived in the Northern California City that I live in. This has been a long time in the wilderness for me. I really desire deeper friendships and a sense of community and neither of those things are there for me....Part of me thinks if I just move back to my old city all would be well....I have some guys that live in that city that I have known many, many years....one I have know about 25 years.....I really long for a sense of belonging and community....I don't find that at church or work....I am probably deluding myself by thinking that things would be better in my old city where my friends and family still live....but 6 years is a long time.....

I see three possibilities:
1. I am in some sort of wilderness that God is trying to teach me something.
2. I suck at making friends
or 3. It is a hard phase in life to make friends....I am 38 years old, a family with 3 kids and I work all day long like everyone else in my peer group, so that does not leave much time for friends and community.

Where is the Acts 2 type of friendships and commuity that I long for? Maybe what I had was just something for college and now this is the best it is going to be? I just know that I am an extrovert that does not have that many friends where I live and I am frustrated by where I am. I know this is heightened by the fact that I am not as close to Jesus as I could be....Everything seems worse when I walk on my own through life's struggles.

Help me Jesus, Hold me Jesus.

Psalm 62:5-8
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge. Selah

I will wait, I will hope in what is not seen,
I will trust my Jesus

Occasional Blogging....Blogging Through the Busyness...

It's been almost 2 months since my last blog....I guess the hits to my blog must be pretty low :-)
Anyway, I have been too busy! Life has a way of doing that to you sometimes....or should I more accurately say, that I have a tendency to get too busy. Last week I had my 21st Christian Birthday and it made me pause and reflect on my life and assess where my past year. I usually assess my past year twice a year: at my birthday in late October and then again at New Years. I think I just had a mini reflection in October because I allowed myself to be so busy. So anyway, I am somewhat disappointed with how my year has been. I am looking back maybe a little further than a year, maybe to Sept/Oct 2004.

One could look back to the genesis of this blog and I see where I was and where I am now....I started this blog as a way to deal with my pain of the past. I was going to counseling, journaling a lot and reading some really good books. God was showing me a new view of Freedom and then I think somewhere along the way I put the on E-Brake. I think I was freaking out about where God might be taking me and scared about the pain I might experience....So I filled up my time; I got myself busy at work and outside of work....I filled my time with reading blogs, compiling a lot of different blogs in my Bloglines account and commenting on a lot of blogs. I was busy with work and I was busy with volunteer work at church and my daughter's soccer team. Even when I have had time and not been busy with meetings at lunch I have not made use of my lunch hour to read, pray, and journal as I used to so consistently. Instead I find that I so often fritter away my lunch time on email, surfing the web, etc.

I don't want to come to this same point in the year next year and have regrets about a lot of the year. Only by consciously planning small daily steps can we change ourselves & move towards the outcome we want. Daily discipline is one of the big keys as I am thinking about all this. It is much easier to be swept up in the momentum of daily busyness and the pressures of life than to slow down and deliberately examine your life and spend time with Jesus. As this year is coming to an end I want to be more deliberate in how I spend my time, and I want to have more contemplative time in prayer and reading the Bible. I think also, I have let the noise of life crowd out the peace of Jesus....It is so easy to fill up on noise, everything shouts so loud and the quiet voice of Jesus takes some slowing, some quiet space, to hear and follow. I let the fear of my past pain shut me down, paralyzing me into a frenzied busyness that numbed me like a drug. What I have really need is the soothing, healing touch of Jesus.

I really love the book of Jeremiah, there are so many verses in this book that are meaningful to me. Some are well known and often quoted, such as Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I read the whole book of Jeremiah over a weekend camping by myself back in May of 1989 when I was going through a very painful time. Perhaps that is why I keep coming back to Jeremiah. In it also, God again and again gives Israel a second chance. There are some verses in this book that I love: Jeremiah 31:25 "I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint." Jeremiah 2:13, not as encouraging, but what we all do again and again:
"My people have committed two sins; They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

How many cisterns, things, distractions, sins, have I, all of us, dug-tried to fashion-- that don't hold water, we turn from His Living water and try to replace it with stagnating, rotten, putrid water.

A more recent discovery is Jeremiah 33:6-8 "Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their rebellion against me." This gives me hope. One last gem, Jeremiah 33:3 "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." Jeremiah Trivia: It is the longest book of the Bible, not in chapters, but in total words. There are a bunch of other great passages in Jeremiah, which I will let you discover....I am already feeling encouraged from being reminded of passages that I have known and treasure. God's Word brings Freedom and Healing, I just need to make time and slow down to take it in, and I need to stop Hiding.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday today; I am 38. It was a very good day all in all....my kids and wife came to my work and took me to lunch at Chipotle, one of my favorite places to eat. We ate, I opened presents, and we had choclate cake. I always like birthdays and New Years....both are a good time to look back on the past year and reflect, get pensive, contemplate your naval. I also went to Starbucks 3 times today: early A.M. with a friend, mid-day after lunch, and tonight during my daughter's soccer practice....going to Starbucks is one of my favorite things to do.

I want to be pensive but mostly I feel tired......I want to ponder what God has in store for me during this next year, but like I said, I am so tired....weary actually. I will sign off my monthly blog entry with a few of my favorite passages from the Bible:

Matthew 11:28-30
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Jeremiah 29:11-14
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

Psalm 62:5-8
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God ;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge. Selah

John 4:13-14
Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Hopefully I can embrace the spirit of these passages and trust Jesus in a deeper way during this next year, knowing that I so desparately need the grace of Jesus to permeate my life, my heart, & my soul.

Insanity

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." ~ Benjamin Franklin

I feel like this has been describing me to a tee lately. I have not been meeting with God very much, maybe once a week or less, and wondering why my I am so down and out, depressed. Everything seems to stress me out and I feel so burdened because I am not going to the ultimate source of Living Water, Jesus. A verse that has meant a lot to me for about 15 years or so is Jeremiah 2:13
"My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water. "

I have been trying so much to make my own cisterns and the water is leaking out and Jesus wants to provide with his Living Water. The cisterns of busyness. The cisterns of blogs. The cisterns of work. The cisterns of kids sports. The cisterns of volunteering....
None of those quench my thirst or fills my needs. Jesus says in John 4 "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." A long time ago I heard a pastor preach on this and he said that form of drinks in the original language would be more accurately translated , "Drinks and keeps drinking..."

Insanity. My soul is cracked and dry and is needing refreshment from the Living Water of Jesus. I need him more than anything. For the one or two readers of this blog, we need him more than anything. But I find lately I am not going back to what I know works, time alone with Jesus praying to him, reading the Bible, but I opt for the lies and insanity of everything else that is calling out so urgently in this life, yelling in visual and auditory tones...the internet, talk radio, K-Love, more noise, but what I need is solitude with my Jesus.

My Jesus, Please help me,
Please Hold me.
Help me to drink deeply from your Living Waters,
that well up to eternal life today.
Carry me,
My Jesus...

Blogging, Why Bother?

Why do I blog....I don't have much to say and not many are really reading what I do say....Why bother? I'm not really sure that blogging is useful to me? What I really desire blogging can't provide. I desire deep, in person relationships and blogging generally does not foster that for me. I think part of it is that I desire contact with others even in the form of online interactions....but also it can be addictive to read the blogs....and I think we all desire to connect with other people and online is just one method.

What makes one a blogger? Do you need to blog 1 or more times a day? Do I need to have the TTLB Ecosystem Animal posted on my blog to be considered a true blogger? I guess according them I am a Crawly Amphibian . To be a real blogger do I need a Technorati button and a Blogdom of God button? Do I need to give everyone a survey of what's going on around the blogosphere to be a real blogger? I guess I am feeling somewhat cynical about it all and feel the time I put into reading blogs is having diminishing returns and the act of blogging doesn't really bring about true community. People may argue with me on the last point, and I'm sure it is a sort of community, but I think it is more of a pseudo-community. It looks real, and at times feels real, but as of yet no one has hugged me through my computer screen. I know some people have a Skype button and I could call them with it, but I'm not going to call a stranger. Another thing I have been wondering is about is annonymous blogging, why do I do it and what do others think about it?

But the most important question I have to ask:
What if I spend more time reading blogs about what others say about Jesus than I actually do in spending time studying what the Bible says about Jesus?