Rock and Whoa!

Some time ago I wrote a blog regarding being in awe of who God through what He has created. Natural witnesses which require no comment on our part in order to substantiate its existence. A few weeks ago my wife and I were in the presence of such witness. We had a chance to visit Yosemite National Park in California.
Half Dome and El Capitan? Oh wow! After taking a qazillion photos in about forty five seconds my wife asked me if I was getting some good photos. Yeah, good photos …. heck I wanted to throw my camera off the cliff ….. how can you possibly catch the grandeur of such a place? (my hats off to Ansel Adams).
So .. you stand … conceding to being helpless to capture HUGE through the lens of a wimpy digital camera.
Sometimes it’s best to rest in wonder. Enjoy Majesty. Surrender to Sovereign boasting.
Look… listen…look some more, it’s like overdosing on “visual inhalation”.
Cool! I didn’t want to leave….I kept looking over my shoulder to see as much as a could until we rounded the last corner and lost sight of Yosemite.
(I made sure I captured it well in my minds eye)
Yeah!

An Investment With the Greatest Return

It’s been a while since I posted a blog. (Not much to say these days)

Some times in life we look back and have regrets over certain things, … mine?
Not spending more time with our kids when they were younger. There was always something SO important to do that I was preoccupied much of the time. Not bad things, but in retrospect, just not worth it. Projects, sports, tasks, etc.
The biggie?
Church leadership.
One of those good things, but in retrospect not worth it.
My wife and I spent seventeen years in leadership; a lot of evenings, weekends, late night meetings not to mention special events. Looking back I would pass on that season of my life and focus that time on family. (More return for the investment).
I would love to have more time with our daughters sitting on my lap reading a story book, (you know the one you read more times than you wanted to)
Fortunately God is gracious and both of our daughters who are both married, and our son, love to spend time with us. Our daughters call fairly often and want to have coffee, just to talk and enjoy the company of “dad”.
Recently our youngest daughter has started playing tennis. What do you do when you need a tennis partner? Call dad!
So for the last several days I get a call during the day from her to make sure “we’re on” and around six p.m. she shows up at our house and it’s off to the park. We really don’t “play” tennis as such. A lot of hitting, running and swinging. (at least for her, I actually play a pretty good game of tennis) But she runs over here and over there, swing, miss …. run … swing….miss … net …. you get it. I just stand on the other side of the net, watching her run, laugh and giggle in the midst of … umph’s, ugh’s and “dang it’s”.
Best of all? the smiles, and the joy of being able to simply relish time with one of our kids.
Sore muscles? ($30)
Lost tennis balls? ($2)
New tennis racket for Shawna? ($35)
Watching her have fun? (Priceless)

It’s not the same as sitting on the couch reading a book, or tucking them in at night but it will do just fine.
Just fine.
Well worth the investment.
God is good.

Rant

A quick post or rather a rant. I wonder why people spend money on stuff that doesn’t make sense. In Portland a new dog park was opened. A one acre, fenced park, with a water pond complete with a fountain, wrought iron all the way around where you can bring fido and let your hair down. $3.5 million.

Bicycle paths.
We have spent millions on these things in order to provide a safe place for bicyclists to ride. Good idea, I agree, a 6 to 8 foot wide traffic lane for bikes. That’s safe, gives me room to get around them with my work truck, right? Wrong. Most cyclists ride on the 6″ white stripe that separates the car traffic lane from the bicycle lane, why? because it rides really smooth. Honest, just ask them. The multiple layers of paint over the years produces a smooth “glide of a ride”. But this actually puts the cyclist closer to traffic and much more difficult to get around than before the path was installed.
They screamed for years for bike paths and when they get them they don’t use them. Why install them in the first place? just shoot a 6″ line of paint for $5.75 a gallon and call it good.
Just a thought

Windmills and Donkeys

I really admire the “get er done” attitude of the disciples. Jesus said “Go” and they did, well, once they realized He had actually risen from the dead, before that there wasn’t much of anything getting done. They were hiding out with each other trying to figure out what the heck went wrong, one day they’re in the middle of the action the next day they’re shocked, scared, confused, out of work followers. But when the holy spirit locked in they went and did, and professed, and increased through the act of proclamation. Sure they met together to discuss issues that came up among the saints or to plan who should go into what region and with whom, but they DID the profession of Christ.
It would appear that most of that has changed for the church of Christ today. The early church went out with a first hand testimony of Who had come. God had leveled the playing field, fulfilled all that had been promised, salvation and restoration with the Father of Abraham, Issac and Jacob had come. The kingdom of king David was established, all of what the prophets had proclaimed was now true in Jesus, eternal life was available to all who would receive and believe! And God was adding to their numbers daily, those who were being saved.
Proclamation. Pro-Claim. Claim reminds me of when a person goes into the mountains and finds a vein of gold in the rock.
“Yeah, baby. I’m rich”
They head to the local assessors office (or what ever it’s called) and stake a claim.
“This is mine, this is what I have in my possession”.
From there I think of pro. I’m not a great english whiz, but it appears that the “pro” part of proclaim is to actively profess forth the news of what I have; to tell everyone, or to make known the truth of my claim.
“I’ve found gold!”. (To tell you the truth I can never understand the movies, where the guy discovers gold and runs through the middle of a street lined with bars full of seedy riff raff yelling, “GOLD! GOLD! I STRUCK GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS!!” Seems really stupid). But they did this and everyone had the opportunity to pursue wealth, or to at least share in a new found treasure.

In some ways we’ve struck gold, and there’s enough for all who want to seek it out.
The disciples went out proclaiming what had been revealed to them through Christ concerning the kingdom of God. This was their “life”.
No one was saved in the upper room hanging out afraid of the Romans or Jewish leadership, but when faith, based upon truth, was practiced with the holy spirit, BOING! All heaven broke loose. Fruit, increase, advancement.
Unfortunately, most of what is practiced in evangelical circles today is the like the upper room after the crucifixion, the waiting, hanging out syndrome. Men’s groups, women’s groups, teens, seniors, and my personal favorite, the accountability group. This is where in the midst of doing nothing we feel a need to be held accountable to a specific group of guys to ensure we stay pure and walk a straight line in our life of sanctification. Accountability in the midst of doing nothing.
We hide out with each other thinking the things we do to keep us busy within the fortress is doing something. It was the “acts” of the disciples outside, with people, in public, boldly proclaiming the truth of a treasure which God had made available to every man. Sure we have the occasional exhortation to, “go, do ….. something ….anything ….sometime …. eerr … uuhhh …. when? WHEN WERE READY! So let’s get ready! We will begin to prepare to become the people God has called us to be! But never demonstrated by those tossing out the exhortations. Strange.
I’ve come to believe this:
“Good generals don’t produce good battles as much as good battles produce good generals.”
You never really win a battle in the war room, it still remains theory, but once it’s taken to the front, things happen.
David vs Saul. Who was standing around for forty days totally dismayed? The entire army of Isreal was stuck in the mud waiting for Saul to get some nards. In the mean time David steps out and gets the job done. How? On the word of God. He stepped out in the power of God and “rocked the joint”.