The Deep, Deep Country.

It is remarkable how limits both inspire us and frustrate us. Few things truly excite me anymore this is not due to some loss of purpose as in a depression or having lived a dull life. It is that I live with a renewed understanding dare I say a completely new position on life itself. Let us be honest when we come to the question of what is life anyway? We all have a particular understanding about life that is met by our own individual combined efforts to navigate supposed purpose, meaning, drive and ambition, by what we understand as love and what we look to as fear. It is in this vastness of opportunity that a person can expect to become an individual with a voice that is reasonably un-individualistic. This is where we typically see rational thought, absolute truth and human potential come into conflict and yet let us not forget the lack of understanding that we have towards true beauty, infallible love and our limitlessness hand in hand with our finite-hood.

For some reason we consistently come up against the grain of violence, fear, corruption and human contrived consecration steeped in humanism. We are a people who seek betterment through desolation, gain through greed, love through lust and power through coercion. It is these things that gave and give the Gospels credence, that articulate the power and the presence of a need we desperately grasp for in Jesus. As those that follow the way of Jesus we also must come to a place of recognition where we very well know that all that there is to gain we have also only a limited understanding of. The restrictions of our humanity have become the linchpin that dangles between our fingertips as we stand in complete incompleteness before a complete, perfect God.

It is in our desire for more that we have rapidly become a society that has cheapened our identities as men and women designed in the image of God himself. The constant struggle to move forward has exhausted us today, and our drive towards yesterday has us tripping over our own feet at this very moment. The great “getting ahead” and “living in yesterday” has driven us into an unrecognizable condition. Our lives have become staples of arrogance, we have become know nothings and we find security in this ignorance. We live by sayings that we deem as wise, but are unrecognizable in a life that is propelled by the Gospels. It is within the framework of sayings such as “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” that I recognize the irony and the lie behind the things we say to bring solace to a situation that demands more of our attention. Words have more power than any stick, or stone or gun or mega bomb. So I suggest that the saying could possibly be resolved by this saying I have put together…

“Tanks and bombs will level the land, but love will conquer all. (or will pull us together)”

Could it be that in our inability to truly understand, that we end up seeing the things we do understand? I would also be ready to admit that it is in the wake of destruction that we see potential, in the face of a dead man we see the potential of life. For who doesn’t say… what a life he would have lived if he hadn’t died, what a life she might have had if she only knew how long she had left. In the end it is just that, we our a people with a beginning and an end, we are an intricately created people with a design and an origin and a drive towards chaos and separation. Do we even understand the fullness of who God is? Can we possibly even believe that we have it all figured out? For my own experience has been riddled with passiveness and relative easy living. I have by only chance encountered a moment or two that has tested by mortality. My mortality has surfaced in moments where I have few if any answers to a situation. How can we question the direction of our lives, when we fail to understand the motion of time, the amount of heartbeats we’ll utilize, the complexity of our lives against the ingrained behaviors of another. When we struggle to get along with one another, how then can we ever see eye to eye with a perfect God? Of course this can be recognized in our inability to truly ever love Him in the way that he loves us- this is why we do nothing to get to Him who has done everything to be with us. This is not pride and conceit but stark realism and flesh and blood living. Thank God for God and even in that expression we are confused and left with our mouths wide open and fingers against our heads. I use the expression of we, and us and our because I’m uncertain about many things but at the least certain about a few things and a portion of my certainness is in knowing that we all have the same make up and the same needs, and the same purpose and the same requirements for life to be lived and death to be expected.

I said earlier that few things truly excite me anymore, and I meant that with every ounce of who I am (which I‘m still unconvinced that I could possibly even know what that means). It seems quite obvious that I should write a moment or two about the very things that do excite me- for if it is true that we can see the demand for beauty through the wreckage of life, that we can see the calm behind the storm, that through death we see life then it would be without question that in the absolute meaningless of the things we do day in and day out (that we grow frustrated with in calling “life”) that we would find the things we are now living for. It is in the whisper of a “I love you,” in the wrapping fingers of a babies hand around your thumb, in the bells that ring out of a wedding chapel and the possibilities of a better tomorrow that we find enjoyment and possibility. It is not within the framework of a simple life lived but with the desire of wanting more of what matters most. Or at least being aware enough to understand those things as mattering the most. Faith has a way of centering a person, and it is typical of those that claim to live a complex life that they are truly living a simple life made up of a complex mix of meaningless activity. The Gospels bring you into a reality that is more real, more desirable, more entrusted than any other reality we have since come to know. Even the definition of love is questioned by our present society, yet ask a husband who just kissed his new wife or the mother who just birthed her first child- ask them what love is and they will only need to smile back in order to make their point. In my love for Jesus, and His love for me, in my love for my wife and for our readied expectations for our son this December I find true love, and I find true enjoyment in this life that is riddled with few things were fighting for let alone worth living for. I live far more complex life than you who chooses to live for what you may experience or demand as a “complex” life- but it is of the good complex that I live.

Paul says often in his letters that he has been chosen, predestined and that we also have had and will have a similar experience. 1 Corinthians 9:16 has Paul stating this to those in Corinth “Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” I would suggest by prior experience and again just by my own expectations of life that we are all called into purpose and this purpose is wrapped up in the will of God. I have been called to preach the Gospel, in the same way that my brother has also been called to preach the Gospel. We live on separate sides of the state, we have been purposed for different churches, for different people, for a different time and with two different (yet similar) voices. Sometimes I wonder how all of this works out, you know just trying to figure out the will of God and the direction that he’s taking all of us. It’s in wondering this that I realize that God has a design and a will that we live in when we come into relationship with Him. Again more confusion over things that shouldn’t be too troublesome yet let’s be honest these things are peculiar and engage us on a gross level ultimately consuming all of our hearts, minds and souls (just the way it should be within living out the will of God) We may wonder why, or where, or how, or when and yet with God we can rest assure that He knows just what He is doing and how He’s going to go about doing it.

Perhaps this is why work has seemingly become unbearable, or why I regularly have a desire to farm, or why I look in the eyes of the retired and the aged and I scream “Not me!” or how I look at all my “stuff” and I go “No more, please!” This may just be why I haven’t written in a while, or why I always say I will but I don’t, why I get an idea and it just stays in my head as an idea, why I desire and drive towards camp fires, wedding dances, and getting an ice cream at the local ice creamery. Potentially it’s in the little things that I recognize to be truly big that I realize just how much more I want those things to be everything, every day. Some would suggest that the intimate kiss of your wife if had everyday would eventually tire, the dirty palms of a days hard work would fade, the preaching of the Gospel would eventually burn you out, the having of children would become seemingly ordinary and unremarkable. These suggestions would be utterly wrong and immature in thought and relationship. For perhaps someone could tire from going to a sun-side resort, wining and dining at a favorite restaurant, having the newest and the greatest of technologies that are out dated as they reach your hands. These are things that you can grow tired of, but the love of a wife, the cry of a newborn, the work of your own hands, your life wrapped up in the Gospels, your recognizing that life does indeed matter, and that God loves you infinitely. These things never grow tiresome, and are worth fighting for, dying for, living for over and over again because these things are everything because they are of God and we have the opportunity to take part in Him and in everything that is God's.

We Sat and Watched Cities Burn

I have a few minutes to write... so I figured I would share a few thoughts here.

Been studying, and reading quite a bit more. Just finished a thorough reading of the book of Romans which is always a treat to read and serves as the outline for the basis of our Christian faith. Now I'm onto reading 1 Corinthians and about to finish it up this morning- prior to this I hung out a bit in the OT and read the Pastoral epistles in the NT.

Side note I think I drink too much coffee.

I missed not having youth group this past week but looking forward to next week. Starting vacation after I get off of work tonight. This vacation couldn't come any sooner, really I've just been so busy and riddled with frustration at work that this time off is greatly welcomed. Even though I'll mostly be on the move this vacation (Matt's wedding this weekend in GR- the following weekend gone for Tina's family reunion). These are all good things though so I more or less look forward to getting away for a bit. I'm pretty sure though that I will have to "make it up" at work upon coming back. I already foresee having to work complete weekends (Fri-Sat-Sun) upon coming back. That's how it's done in my business... you take off work for a little while and it comes back to bite you. It wouldn't be a huge issue if it wasn't for the fact that I'm already going to miss 2 weeks of going to church and now I'll potentially have to miss more services. For some going to church actually matters beyond a manufactured routine.

I'm always willing to wait on God... I'm just so excited and I'll admit sometimes even impatient with waiting for the ministry. (Who doesn't look forward to doing what they were called to do with their life?) Just need to pray, stay patient and hold fast hope.

It's weird sometimes I go through these phases where I feel drawn to being creative- this typically manifests itself into wanting to create/write a book, comic book, TV show... etc. I just have to sit on some of the idea's rushing through my head for a bit longer- I can only handle one thing at a time. It's never good to spread yourself across too many platforms. Besides I'm having too much fun working through scripture and writing here from time to time.

Well that's it for now... have to shower and get ready for work.

Be in His Love and Go in Peace.

- Lance

Our finger tips wrestle with worry and reaching.

What if you had one conversation left? What would it be about? How would it go and who might it be with?

How do you feel about endings? Are you as excited for endings as beginnings? I have had so much on my mind as of late and I wish I could just find the right words to describe how I have been feeling and what I have been thinking about. I’ve been thinking about the pain of others a lot lately, about the world and the messed up condition of it all. I have been thinking about my own family and the issues going on all around me.

How it can be so incredible to feel such a great wave of emotions ranging from jubilant to confusion. I’ve never been so blessed in my life as I am right here and right now knowing that Judah is well on his way. I’m full of joy and love for this little guy and I just pray that I will be able to offer him everything that he and Tina both deserve.

On the other side I’m dealing with issues in my family, and what I perceive to be the hopelessness that they have right now. Some have put their trust in their jobs, they have put their trust in their health, their homes, their families, their stuff, their idea’s and their logic. As we stare down into an abyss of perceived hopelessness, while our man-made structures breakdown and fall apart before our eyes.

When I know and have heard about those that I love so dearly who have had such a hard time loving themselves. About those around me who have gone about hurting themselves- my life is one that seeks to reach the lost and to love on the hopeless and yet there are some who are incredibly close to me who cut themselves and push their lives to near death. I wonder sometimes how I can express God's love to those I have just met for the first time while there are some who I have known for years that I'm unable to help or work with. All of the stuff that we deem as important, doesn't seem all that important when put against the sacredness of life and about being just one blip on a radar that will no doubt continue on for years and years well after I'm long gone. Of course who knows how it will all end, perhaps it will be in my life time or it will be generations from now. Perhaps it will be long after I'm gone but in the time of my grandchildren. It's within the framework of understanding just how much God loves us that I feel this incredible sense of urgency to go out and share that with anyone and everyone. This immediate drive propels my life into a life of meaning, and it's difficult when confronted by things that concern everyone else but that I have a hard time finding as anything of importance. It's the small stuff that everybody makes into big stuff, these small things are big because a lot of people lack any understanding of what is truly important and big in life.

As a society, as a world we have been flying upside down for so long that we have no concept of what's right side up. It's in this understanding of the fallen nature of our world that it becomes easier to recognize the outlines of failure and the frustration of the creation. I have been encouraged by the Holy Spirit recently and what's wrong has been made known to me through the Spirit. The small stuff, the trivial things that we all become so upset over during the day have become just that "trivial" and seemingly meaningless. Caring about a sales report seems futile when occupying the same area of space in my brain/heart that recognizes tonight another child will be beaten, another man will sleep on the street, another woman will give her body away, another man will cheat, another family will break, another person will be preparing for death while another takes his or her last breath. The stuff that most of us get upset about seems so small, so insignificant and really just pathetic.

Especially when we have set ourselves up to fail as we work within the framework of a system that gawks and stands impressed by it's own Godlessness.

There has been in the past few weeks an acceleration in my life for the Gospel, every word, every thought, every phrase is wrapped around Him. It's as if I can see into the heart of another and I can see that the house their living in is burning around them, and the smoke is starting to billow in. All I can do is cry out for their rescue. The immediacy in my place, this propelling motion that I have been subject to is bigger than me, is more powerful and has challenged my conventional thought process. I feel as if every conversation I have could very well be my last. When you start to recognize just how important your words could be to another, and that in some ways your first encounter could be your only encounter with somebody.

It makes you desperate. It also makes it next to impossible to put anything into words or into writing. How can I possibly corner this feeling into words? It's nearly impossible.

I often wonder why it is that we choose to spend so many hours involved in talking about things that absolutely do not matter. Why we sign up for jobs that force us to say what they want us to say to do what they would have us to do. So all the while we're screaming inside for someone to hear us but all we can offer is a repetitive sales pitch. So it's with saying this I understand that I'm at the end of a season, and I'm pretty sure I know what all this means and what will happen. Like I said previously and will continue to say I'm so incredibly blessed with this baby and being married to the most beautiful woman. Professionally I have just hit a wall, and I just don't feel that I can't afford to get upset any longer over the stuff that does not matter or will have any prolonged impact on my life.

I'm not sure anyone can understand where I'm coming from or what I'm saying. I have never felt so sure of where I'm supposed to be, and what I'm supposed to be doing and when I'm not there, when I'm not teaching, loving and sharing who He is with others. I feel like a made up cheap version of myself. I feel like an alien just waiting for his ship to land in order to take him back to the land and the people he has always loved.

It's this inner passion, this drive that both compels me and frustrates me. I'm about the will of God and wanting what He would want for me. It's in my attempts to understand just when that is that has left me so often frustrated. When, where, how... I just have to be patient and I just have to love what He has already so graciously given me.

See for those that are reading this and lack an understanding of who God is, for those that are reading this and believe all I'm talking about is religion or would say to me "I never knew you were so religious" I would say to you that this is not religion, this is reality. What I believe in is living as real, as authentic and as purpose filled as possible. To know just what all this means requires that I know Him better and so it's not that I live under some sort of imaginary tent you call religion- it's that I live in the most real-reality there is while you meddle with false realities and orchestrated dreams of men. This really isn't a put down, for how can you know that all that your potentially living for is stuff that will eventually waste away, that it will wither and fade. So I invite you. I invite all of you to share in the Story with your own stories.

It bothers me that I have those in close vicinity that share some of the same traits, one or two that share the same blood as me and they are so often without hope. I have a sister who shares her bed with death nearly every day. Her life has been riddled with drugs, with sexual promiscuity, with damaging her body, her brain, her beauty. It hurts to know that I have not been able to make a difference. That while I preach the Gospel, I have someone who I have known my entire life who is so lost, so confused and so caught up with death.

I mourn those that are not yet physically dead but who are spiritually dead.

My mother shares quite a bit of the same past, and with knowing this, with seeing who I know she wants to be and who she is capable of being- I'm in such pain over this because I believe in a fuller, more real version of life than most. I know that something went wrong in the garden but I also know that a rescue plan has been set in motion and that things do not have to be the way they are. For most of us have not repented about those things in our past that haunt us, we have not yet forgiven those that have hurt us and because of this we can not live freely in what God has for us. These hauntings, these pains have turned from mental to spiritual to manifestations in the physical body. We can not live as conquerors if we're still shackled by our past as prisoners. It's knowing that I have people so intensely close to me that I love and I have been unable to help them so far that truly wrecks me. So I pray and pray and pray...

Yet there is Hope. A Hope that is bigger, and broader than any other Hope. A real Hope that flirts with Godliness and runs gold with beauty and perfection. It is like the woman who has been bleeding for 12 years and has come into contact with Jesus- she has for 12 years sought out the healings of the Savior. She has been bleeding, she has been weakened by the loss of blood, she has been deemed unclean because of her bleeding- she is essentially a nobody in a culture that relishes in lifting up some and tearing others down. She is unable to marry because of her inability to provide children, her entire social status has been obliterated, and her identity has been nearly lost. Yet she struggles through the crowd, weak from the loss of blood, protecting her face from being seen and acting desperately with her fingertips as they seek to only reach the healing within His wings. This is how I view our culture, this is how I view my life and those that I so desperately love around me.

We just need to touch his cloak.

If this makes any sense at all... these are the sort of thoughts that have been running through my head as of late. I just feel desperate, and not just for myself but for all of you in my life. Perhaps we haven't talked in awhile, perhaps we need to, perhaps I've been distant and if I have I'm sorry. I love you all and I just want you to live in a reality so real that you can never go back to the former.

Be in His Love and Go in Peace.
- Lance

10 minute blog- GO!

Everything has been going pretty well. Well let me rephrase that everything has been going very well. I'm busy, busy, busy and would like to in the future put together a video blog which would require a digital video camera, some editing software and a host site. I just think at this point in my life that a video site would allow for more blog time rather than attempting to sit down and write about the happenings of life. So we'll see...

Baby Judah has been growing so incredibly. We're really so blessed with this baby and I can't wait to meet him. Time is surely flying by and I just pray that everything goes well with the glucose test today for Tina and Judah. The next couple weeks will fly by due to being off of work, going to my brothers wedding in Grand Rapids and following that up with going up north for a family reunion. These youth gatherings have been really good so far, still seeking my own style and voice... I'm happy that I'm working with a group that understands that and what we're really doing isn't manufactured church but living and breathing and authentic (or so that is always the attempt) I kind of dragged on for a little while the other day (roughly 30 minutes) I try to keep things to 15-20 minutes. Yet sometimes a particular message calls for a longer period of time and if I feel that I'm being moved by the Spirit- well then I'm in no way going to hush Him up. I hope that these kids have gotten something out of this so far... I know that I have.

Sometimes I want to get the "whole story" out there and I just have to keep reminding myself that these get togethers are not a one time affair- yet I also that it's the passion in me for the Gospel that makes me this way. I have for a number of years felt that this is what I'm supposed to do and haven't been able to. (well not in the context of in front of a class or church body) I feel that I'm at the end of season in my life and I often think that it has to do with work (who am I kidding it totally has to do with work) yet I also am wondering if that just means the end of my present job and that I need to seek outside that job for a similar job until the ministry position opens up or if that means that I will be in a ministry position soon... oh I don't know.

I just know that I'm incredibly tense every time I go to work and often I feel like I'm suffocating due to the pressure. Secondly I also know that I'm built for something else and when I'm doing it (these youth gatherings) I feel so alive and it's a feeling that I can't explain. So I would just ask that anybody and everybody who reads these blogs... well please pray for me, for us (Tina, baby and myself) because I always want to follow God's Will and I'm really just trying to confirm what that means for us right now. I would hate to start out at a similar job, to relearn everything only to have to quit after only a short while there.

I'll end here... because I really must go clean up cat poo and get ready for work... I also need sometime for prayer.
Sorry for any grammar issues, no time to reread or go over.

Be in His Love and Go in Peace.
- Lance

Something a bit different...

Not the usual sort of post from me...

Detroit Redwings 2009-2010

I could go on and on about my feelings towards the Finals, towards the agenda of the NHL and the what-if's (If Datsyuk and Lidstrom were healthy- not to mention Cleary, Holmstrom and Rafalski) Oh and if Hossa actually showed up... but we'll stay away from talking about that (for now).

So Hossa is gone to Chicago, Kopecky gone to Chicago, Samuelsson to Vancouver, Hudler to the (possibly to) KHL Russian league, McCarty and Downey gone (to the Beer league most likely) Conklin to St. Louis (where we send all of our goaltenders ie Osgood, Legace... oh and we took Joseph from Toronto but he was originally with the Blues) Chelio's well... to wherever.

So this is a different team... don't say it isn't because it totally is. These Wings are older and yet younger... lol

-Draper, Maltby, Lidstrom, Rafalski, Osgood and Holmstrom are all older and that may play a factor.

Yet we'll no doubt bring up to the team... Leino, Helm, Abdelkader, Ericsson, Howard, and possibly and I mean possibly Kindl (one can only hope)

I'm also interested in McCollum and Ryno (that Swedish freak of a 6'5" player) although they say Ryno is lean and well... I guess just lean. So hopefully he adapts more of a bite to his play. I've always liked Kindl because I feel like he's a poor man's Lidstrom (which isn't a bad thing when you are talking about Lidstrom)

I fully expect that Filpulla will have a break through season after a lack luster one last year, Leino will come up and be an animal (crossing my fingers with this one) and Ericcson will only get better, oh and Kronwall will have a killer season. Howard will be better than most believe he's going to be but will show at times some confidence issues. The Wings for a number of years have said that Howard will be there guy and I have for a long time wanted him to atleast be given the chance and this is it. With the added pressure of McCollum and Larson (sp? don't have time to check) between the posts of their Griffins and Sweden affiliates. Howard will have to perform or be shipped quicker than Fed Ex over-night.

People keep talking about the loss of scoring with all the "exits" that have happened and they also have been saying if only the Wings had a "fighter" they would have been able to beat Pitts in seven. I suggest that if they were healthy, didn't have a lop-sided league against them and would have had scoring from those that left us we would be staring at repeat champs. So let No-Hossa take off (even though it drives me nuts that he went to a division rival- hey look at it this way at least when we play against Chicago next year he won't be a factor... right?)

Hudler has now messed us up not just once, but twice. Once by suggesting that he was going to go play for Russia and the second time because he agreed to arbitration which has the NHL and KHL in a battle for his rights and now Holland is stuck with money that is locked up against a guy that doesn't apparently want to be here. So Holland can't sign anyone and when the NHL loses out on the Hudler issue- so will Holland and so will the Wings. SWEET.

I'm actually quite tired of seeing all these "average" Joe's coming through here and apparently thinking that they are superstars and it's all due to the cast that's around them. Martin Cough cough Lapointe. To some degree Mr. Fedorov as well... and now Hudler goes the same way. Let the little dude go, and we'll see just how ready Landon Ferraro is.

Ultimately I'd like to see the Wings pick up a 18-25 goal scorer to replace Hudler- I'm not worried about the loss of Hossa since we won the Cup two years ago without him. So that's that... looking forward to this fall and thankful that I didn't invest money into a Hossa jersey.

Whew!

- Lance

As we breathe and blood circulates we say thank you and I love you.

Hi, I’ve missed you.

I haven’t written in a while and yet it’s not because I haven’t felt the need to it’s just been that life has been so incredibly busy and God has had so much for Tina and I in the past few months. Our lives have been so busy and yet so blessed- to be quite honest it’s these sort of blogs that I both cherish and also find to be frustrating. I’ve gone so many months without a word (or at the least an in depth word) that now I’m sitting here on a Monday night at 10:30 and I have three months of “stuff” to go over and I’m just overwhelmed at even trying to break ground. I could sit here and write a book about all the stuff that I’m feeling, going through, enjoying and preparing for with knowing that I’m going to be a Daddy and that this baby in Tina is such a blessing, such an incredible act of God that my own words can not describe accurately how I feel. I could fill out the better half of a book while writing to you about this youth group, about our experiences so far (and we’ve only come together ONE time!) about what it means to be thought of as a teacher, as a friend to these kids- just to be in their lives and to have an affect on who they are today and who they will become. It’s so incredible, every bit of my life right now is incredible. (have I used the word “incredible” enough yet?)

I sit here nursing a perforated ear drum (otherwise known as a ruptured ear drum) while blood mixed with ear canal fluid drips from my ear to my shoulder and I just spent the last 30 minutes pacing the drive way listening for God and conversing with Him about what needs to happen this Wednesday at our second youth gathering. I’m in pain and overjoyed. Clearly this is the beauty and the craziness of Faith.

How do you witness to the youth today about Jesus?

Where do I start- what will have direct impact? What will draw them into conversation? Can I be ready with an outline and yet be ready to allow God to drastically alter all of it at a moments notice?

It’s in this spontaneous understanding of how God works that I find the most enjoyment. I’m sad for those that have seemingly “pigeon holed” God and have come up with “this is how God works” and have treated Him as someone or something that can be caged and trained to speak, sit and roll over. I love being able to allow God to be God, and that everyday is just another opportunity to seek His face and His presence. I’m not caught up in religion or some sort of tradition that attempts to abort the seed that is the truth which is Jesus Christ. I don’t have to be on the offense all the time and attempt to coarse somebody into believing what I believe by using methods that are totally, and completely not like the way of Jesus. I don’t have to corner someone and watch them squirm as I throw my four spiritual laws in their face and listen to them beg for mercy.

Sometimes all I need to do is just show that I love them. Just love.

That I care. That I’m here. That I believe in a higher power and that higher power died and rose from the grave. I just have to suggest that I believe dead men walk and that we come from a fallen race that has since been lifted back up into glory. I just have to tell them that Jesus is coming back and that we’re part of His rescue mission. Adam is gone and the Last Adam has arrived.

I’m so caught up in what God’s doing right here, right now… that I have trouble concentrating in other areas of my life. Every day I just move closer to his presence… every day I ask for more of what He has to offer- I ask for His love, His power to completely and totally take charge of my life. You see there is this great delusion in Christian circles, that because you go to a Christian college, or a Bible college that you actually spend hours and hours in the scriptures. You do to some degree, but you also spend quite a bit of time in two hundred other books and these books can never fill you in the way that the Bible does. These other books are like condensation on the outside of the glass- but the real stuff, the real good stuff, the stuff that quenches your thirst and can bring you from desolate and dead to alive and breathing is found in the Word itself. Now this isn’t to say that I’ve been a heathen for the past couple years, it’s just that I always came to the scriptures with a magnifying glass in hand and an operation table propped up under it. So I have been praying in recent weeks that I would spend a great deal of time in the scriptures and that I would feel as if I’m drying up like a desert without being in the Word… and since that prayer I have been like a mad man after the Word. So this is why I haven’t blogged, why I haven’t continued on with either book, or why I haven’t been around very much at all. Through reading the Word as a devotional text and not always as a scholarly text- I have found that my Faith has increased, my prayer life has begun to drive skyward, I have become more vocal and sure of who I am in Christ and my knowledge of things have been increased 10-fold as the Word has become apparent through the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Most of what was self condemnation and being overly aware of my choices and second guessing myself all the time has been removed through the Life of Freedom courses. My issues with confidence have started to break down and my love for others has begun to open up aggressively. It’s great to be alive right now, and every day is an opportunity to reflect Christ to another.

From this pregnancy to this youth group to my relationship with Soul Quest Church and Pastor Dave- I’ve been so blessed, and how could I ever forget my loving family and the roof that they have put over mine and Tina’s heads. I’m caught up in the truth of the Gospel, and when you get a taste of the reality of the Kingdom- you simply can’t stop talking about it, you can’t stop talking about Him. You want restoration everywhere, and in everything. You want every relationship to count, you want God to purify and restore your work place, you want Him to alter and correct all the stuff that has plagued your family for years, you want Him to reach into the lives of those that you have known your entire life and you know for a fact that they do not know Him at all.

It’s why I get frustrated with work- because I know what it could be like but because of the present systems in place that drive a goal of profit over everything and every one else you can only cry out… “God if they only knew what could be!” I look at the history of my family and those around me I love so deeply and I wonder why we have allowed sickness, and illness, and secrets to manifest themselves into trauma and separation and we have called these things “normal.” I cry more often than ever now for the man on the street who lives out of an old wobbly shopping cart, or the child going to bed tonight who has never known love but only abandonment and abuse or the marriages that just came to an end or the schooled and the religious who have missed Jesus while petitioning for Jesus.
I sometimes wonder just why it is that a lot of people really want Jesus but they don’t always want to know his followers.

I often wonder why people seek the face of Jesus alone and in despair and do everything possible to stay away from the Church. They want Jesus but they don’t very well like the Church.
The answers are both simple and complex, far reaching and ever so close. I wonder if we have taken lightly what it means to be a part of the Body of Christ. I grasp at the very possibility that we as Christian’s could be the only time a person ever experiences Jesus- and we may mess it all up.

I wonder sometimes if we truly take in account that our first encounter with someone could be our last.

I think, and ponder, and pray that we can be a better representation of Him. That we can be the legs, the feet, the arms and the heart of Jesus- that we can love one another, and help show His face to those that are lost. I seek, I question, I sit and wait for Jesus to continue showing his beautiful face and I ask Him if I could do anything else to even come close to an ounce of giving back to Him what he has given me. In waiting I hear that I’m to tell His story, that I’m to live a life that displays his love, affection, joy and truth and that I’m to do all of this humbly and in submission to His will. Amen.

Could we become more aware of what is a definite, and what is in question? That definitely God loves us. That it’s questionable that we totally and truly understand that level of love. That definitely we’re here for a reason. That questionably we often miss the point of it all. That definitely God is in control of anything and everything- that he has created all and he sustains all. That we questionably question His sovereignty and His power and His prestige. That we definitely need to stop fighting over all the stuff that truly DOES NOT matter. That questionably one day we will get there. That we’re definitely beautifully, intricately and immaculately designed. That we can question all that we want but His truth goes deeper, and further and is more vast than any truth we could ever conger up or any question we could ever muster. That we’re definitely in the presence of a God who is full of love for a fallen creation and yet He has made right what we made wrong. That we should question how often we take for granted all the miracles that are everyday circumstances. That it’s not automatic that we’ll breathe another breath or that our blood will continue to circulate through our veins- that getting out of bed in the morning is a complete and total miracle. That we should definitely open our eyes and that we should question just how much we’ll love Him back.

Thank you Jesus for being You. Thank you for loving me when I didn’t know how to love myself. Thank you for the baby that lives, and grows and makes my wife even more beautiful than she already is. Thank you for your Grace, Forgiveness, and Love. Thank you for your Holy Spirit which empowers me, strengthens me, makes the words of the wise, clear and recognizable and heals all of us. I praise you for tonight, and I’ll definitely praise you when I open my eyes tomorrow morning and I’ll question just how much more I can love you back. Thank you for definitely loving me when I questionably didn’t love myself.

- Peace be With You.
Lance