characters.

every good story has a variety of characters. come to think of it, every story has characters. some dumb, some boring, some funny, some are just characters. my life is one such story. today I have been reminded that each character has in them their own story. life is so rich when you take the time to see the character for what they really are. some dumb, some boring, some funny...

each day that I breath (which is 100% of them to date) is in itself a blank page waiting to be written on. the lines of tragedy, the lines of poetry, the lines of drama waiting to unfold. don't rush the unfolding beauty. just let it happen. a life connected with Almighty God is yet another story. its beauty is certainly in the ending. do yourself a favor today, read it all. love the characters.

a measure of spirituality... 8 words.

I heard a line today that captured my attention. At some point in your life you will face tough times. We all do, some more often than others but nonetheless they will come. I often wonder why? Why me? Are tough times God's way of dealing with my wandering from Him? Are my personal trials a way that God gets even with me? Is it a loving Father disciplining me for only He knows what? In my mind, these would all be logical and even worthy thoughts. Maybe it is a by-product of the way I was raised and how I have grown to see God. I battle from time to time with the all loving, on my side version of God and the "I'll show you", He's out to get me type of God.

My experience and His word show me one thing but my mind and my own personal guilt lead me in other directions. I get torn. But the line that got me today was in reference to this point... Tough times happen to everyone. Matthew 5:45 says "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." We all face tough times. But get ready, here it comes... "Problems are not a measure of my spirituality." Wow, how liberating are those 8 words?

That again tells me that He is not out to get me. It is part of a fallen world. Tough times happen. They happen to us all. It's like that passage of scripture when the disciples asked Jesus about the blind man. They said something like "who sinned, him or his parents, that caused him to be blind?" Jesus response was simple... it aint like that.

So, in the midst of tough times, be reminded that it may just be a way of strengthening us. It may be part of a plan that we didn't get let in on just yet. In tough times, ask this question... "Lord, what is it that You want me to learn in all of this?"

today I stopped...

Ever notice how when you are at your busiest moment of the day, somebody was created just to interrupt you in mid-stride? Or when you are actually finding a minute of extreme productivity in whatever the task may be, the cell phone rings. And it's your wife. What do you do? Let it roll to voicemail? What if it is an emergency? What if she is just calling to tell you how much she loves you and that you are the most wonderful man in the world... I mean you want to catch that call for sure.

But what about those other people. The drains on social society. We all have them in our life and if you don't just call me... I'll share. You know the type... those who when you see them coming you quickly act like you are getting a call. Those people were created to step in the midst of your already stormy day and add more calamity not calmness. I wonder if God in all of His infinite wisdom doesn't just send some of those people to intersect your hectic and possibly meaningless day? I mean what if He sees that we need to slow down, take a deep breath and remember what we were created for? After all, aren't we supposed to love others in the same manner as we love ourselves?

Well, today I stopped. I was briskly making my way from one appointment to another when I walked past a lady I did not know at all standing at the bus stop. I spoke and actually was intentional to make eye contact with her so that she knew I really wondered (even if for but a brief moment) how she was really doing. She spoke back as if she felt that I really was interested. The next thing I know I am hearing all about how great and wonderful God has been to her. She starts by telling me how her pastor carried a wooden cross made from a real tree that he had harvested all by himself into church on Easter Sunday morning. I kind of laughed it off and thought how ridiculous that idea was. In fact, do something original... that carrying the cross thing has been played out for hundreds of years. Then it hit me. She wasn't talking to me, she was talking at me. She had a message that I needed to hear. Maybe in my self-righteous little life I may have missed the beauty of Easter yesterday. She was my reminder. She went on to tell me all about her son who was severely handicapped had just turned 18 and the doctors had told her years earlier that he wouldn't live past 5. She poured out the miracles that God had performed in her own life and all I could do was think that she was sent into my life by my Heavenly Father today, not to slow me down, but rather to stop me cold in my tracks.

She got it. She had experienced first hand the beauty of the resurrection and she was sharing it with me whether I wanted to hear it or not. Her bus came and she scurried off to make it home I guess and I was left to deal with what remained. Me, standing there. A man who truly wants to please God in every aspect of my life. A man who wants to give more than he takes. A man who strives daily to take life by the horns and ride each moment for everything that is in it. And all I could do was stop.

the missed embrace.

Sin occurs everyday. Whether it is you or it is me or someone else... it happens. Temptation occurs seemingly thousands of times everyday. It happens. In those moments of disobedience to our Heavenly Father, for me at least, it becomes all about me. My inadequacy to stand on my personal promises to God in private moments of prayer. About how I feel like I have let down and disappointed the One who matters most. It becomes about patterns and habits in our lives. And even when we read something like this what do we do? We wonder and try to figure out what it is that the writer is referring to. What are his struggles? What "sin" or "temptation" is he talking about. Well, if you just did that. STOP. Too often it is a practice of self-justification. If someone else's stuff is worse than mine then that makes me less bad. Or if someone else is dealing with the same kind of stuff I have then maybe I am not so yucky of a person after all. Again, STOP.

You don't get points based on my performance just like I don't score better when you fail. Here again, we almost always make it personal... it's about me.

I had this thought this morning as I listened to Donal Miller (Blue Like Jazz guy) and here it is: What if in those moments where we face a choice to do what is right or to do what is self fulfilling, that in that very moment it is not in His eyes a choice about right or wrong but rather an opportunity to embrace Him? Forget you for a moment and try to see you through His eyes. In that moment we call temptation, see it as a call from Heaven to simply grab on to His way. Not a personal fork in the road, which way do I go? It is a moment where we can embrace our Heavenly Father and allow Him to do what only He can do anyway.

Maybe you missed a chance to embrace Him today. The saddest part of that is that moment can never be regained. Not that he will never provide that type of moment again, but that specific moment is gone. Adios. My personal prayer today is "please send me another moment... soon." Send me another opportunity to put me aside and simply embrace You.

just like daddy

As I walked across my kitchen floor tonight, I had a flash go before my eyes. For a split second I thought I saw my dad. Not like in a six-sense kind of way but more like a reflection. There are no mirrors in my kitchen and nothing really to cast a glare and in fact it wasn't even a real reflection. It was actually me. You see, after 14 years I shaved my beard off yesterday. My daughters had never seen me without any facial hair and my wife could barely remember what I "used" to look like. Who knew I had a dimple on my chin. I didn't remember that being there.

As I stood in the shower tonight peering into that little shaving mirror I noticed how funny my upper lip looked. Then as I stared at my almost clean face I saw my dad. I remembered for a split second how his face felt and looked as he had that nice 5 o'clock shadow. I remembered that late night smell of his t-shirt... it always had that same familiar smell.

Later as I walked across the kitchen in my same old pajama pants (almost like my dad used to wear) and those house shoes that we bought him for Christmas year before last that he never wore and gave back to me and after eating my late night bowl of vanilla ice cream... I saw my dad. He used to eat a bowl of ice cream or chips and a slice of cheese almost every night. And lo and behold... now I am doing it. I wonder quietly what it is that I do that my daughters will pick up from me as they grow older?

And all of a sudden I wonder how much of him do I reflect? And better yet, how much of Him do I reflect? As we all strive to please our fathers or even our Father, how much of our compassion for others is in His image? How much of our passion is a resemblance of Him? It isn't all that difficult to decipher. He made it fairly simple. Yesterday, today, tomorrow... how much do I grow to be more like my Daddy?

alone.

by yourself is an odd place. if you are truly alone you can scream as loud as you can and nobody can hear you. you can think out loud, talk to yourself, act goofy, run, dance, jump. alone is a free place. you dont feel the pressure to please anyone or the tension to do what is right or expected and there is a freedom in that. sometimes, i cherish that alone time. in fact, most every night i wait for that alone time when it finally settles down at my house and everyone is asleep but me. the television is more than likely on but irrelevant. quietness overcomes me as i sit in "my" chair looking increasingly like my father... pajama pants, same old t-shirt and those horrible house shoes. i dont know why i wear them. i hate the fact that i feel the need to but maybe it is part of my genetical makeup... dna? alone. no one to answer. no one to question. no one to listen to. no one to talk back. completely alone... well, except for God.

there is such solitude and peace and freedom in being alone. by yourself is an odd place. the place that brings such stillness is also the same place that brings restlessness. i completely acknowledge the difference between alone and lonely. in fact, that is the difference in and of itself. alone on the flip side is a horrible, singular, blinding, deafeningly silent place. as much as i covet my personal quiet solitude i never want to exchange it for loneliness. for those who have experienced that type of failing trade, an emotional bailout is in order. only after three recent days apart from my soul mate and i am a desolate human. i live in temporary lostness when we are apart. yet too often i experience the same thing when we are together. there are times when i take for granted the treasure i am honored to call my wife. after about 48 hours apart neither one of us is fun to be around. we get to missing one another. it just happens. we both love our alone time. neither of us wants to experience loneliness.

briefly alone... ok. other than that, i'm out. in fact God even said that it was not good for man to be alone. i bet He was thinking about me.

friends are friends forever.

Back in the day, this song by MWS was played at every graduation, church youth group, and retreat in the entire South Eastern United States. It almost shames me that I at one time cried after hearing this song and even now this song turns my stomach (in a much different way). But the theme still runs true. Friends (real friends) are friends forever. After a weekend involving lots of re-visits with old friends, I have been reminded of this simple fact. Try this some time just for fun...

joerodneytomjohnmarcstevenkeithshanamelissakelleymelodietoddrusstreyshanesusanchrisshawnkevindavidshannongaryjasonmattjimmytoddkipbradmatteloajustinbrocknickwilliamdavesonnylukejeffmatttonyabridgettkristenamandajenniferkevintomderrickphillipbenduncanraymondchrischadchrisrandygarmoncjantwantonyfloyddavidmikejohnalanmaryzacdwaindanajoelcraigbriandukephiltimbrettjoetylermacjondeechadronnieandymicahelliotdarelldustinkevindaveyjaredmichaelbillbobsandortimeddiejohnnylesliemichelesisdavejoeymattsherrymonacindytracytawanabrandonbrockglenroblonniestevewilledevierobbirralphrachaeltimothythomastashaicemanjonathanirisolivianickprestonpamelapaulmarcimatthewmelvincharlesiraianjasoneggychrisbutchcalvinbrandimaudeangelaaustinsethdustyfredgregharryjustinekarllarryalisallydevonfelixgennielaurenharmonyjuliaroyalicekimlawrencemistynataliebertriceviccandizoraadamsharondorisfrankgillhollyjessiekolbylorenqvariuswilliamellarufustorreyyasmineuniceivanoliverpete.

It took me about five minutes to just list the first names of people who I call friend. The list thankfully is much more exhaustive than this but I got tired of thinking. After spending time with friends this weekend I am thankful for them all. It is just so nice t have people in your life who get you. I mean you don't have to explain yourself at all. If you try they see through the crap because they know the real you. They see past the bad and know first hand the good. It is like you never have to catch back up you just carry on.

Good friends are hard to come by for some people. I am a man who has been blessed with many... good friends.