sometimes......

Josh. 24:15 But if you don’t want to worship the LORD, then choose right now! Will you worship the same idols your ancestors did? Or since you’re living on land that once belonged to the Amorites, maybe you’ll worship their gods. I won’t. My family and I are going to worship and obey the LORD!

Sometimes I have no idea what I am doing. I make decisions that were the wrong ones, simply because I didn't take the time to think or talk something through. Other times I sit still because I don't know which direction to go in a certain area. I am sure glad that God is the one who is responsible for getting His things done through me. I am growing in so many areas, but much too slowly for my liking. I find it easy to make up my mind to serve God, and even easier to lapse into service myself.

To worship and obey the Lord is more than a Sunday service or working in the ministry. Just because I give my time to the poor and those in need doesn't mean I'm serving God. Is everything I do worship? I pray that someday I'll truly get to that point where I don't have to think about it (yeah right). Right now, I depend on Christ to carry me.

new school

My daughters are now students at Travis Elementary. It's quite a change from the private school they were at before. They talk about how big it is and all the friends they have. My daughter Jessica told me last night as we were about to eat, "Daddy, we don't have to pray before lunch at my new school." It was a great teaching moment as we discussed praying at all times, even when we aren't made to.
I have also met some of the parents and they are pretty cool. One of them said "There are actually people here that I would like to get to know better." Her daughter had been in a Lutheran School. For some reason she saw the parents and staff at the church as people she didn't have anything in common with. I hear this comment more and more as I'm in the community. What makes the church so stand-offish to people? How do we remedy this so people feel comfortable talking with us?
Anyway, I am happy to have the chance to meet more parents who don't go to church.

Mission work according to Rob Bell

It is searching for the things they have already affirmed as real and beautiful and true and then telling them who you believe is the source of all that. "I am here to tell you where I think it comes from ..."

And if you do see yourself carrying God to places, it can be exhausting.

God is really heavy.

Some people actually believe that God is absent from a place until they get there. The problem with this idea is that if God is not there before you get there, then there is no "there" in the first place.

Man's prophetic actions offer lifestyle of fun

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. — In May, Alan Barrett, 26, began performing prophetic acts to send messages from God to the church.
"My calling is like Ezekiel and Jeremiah's," he says, referring to prophets who acted out messages from God.
But Barrett's prophetic acts have afforded him a lifestyle of leisure, friends say. For example, he went to Disneyland "as a prophetic act to communicate that the church is living in a fantasy world," he said. While there, he interceded for the church on Peter Pan, Splash Mountain and various other rides.
He convinced his parents, with whom he still lives, to pay for a cruise to Mexico to indicate that "the church is adrift and must chart a godly course."
Back home Alan sits around his parents' house to indicate that the church is uninspired and lazy. He often drinks Starbucks Frappuccinos as a prophetic statement that God has "a sweet future" for the church, if people will repent. He goes to bed early as a prophetic act to say that "Christians are asleep on the job" of winning the lost.
For breakfast he demands that his mother buy him Lucky Charms, so he can warn the church that "many of their sermons are sugar-coated fluff," he says. He shares his prophetic insights during testimony time at church.
Alan's father says his son has "an unusually pleasant mission," and that he should get a job as a prophetic act that the church "must work harder and start paying its own bills."
But Alan's mother is happy to support God's work in Alan's life.
"I always knew he had a special calling," she says. •

time for everything?

I have been struggling more and more with my humanity. Previously I never gave a thought to how much time it would take for a new project I wanted to start. I was like a man who didn't count the cost before building a tower. As I get older (34), and especially this last year, I am thinking more about my time and how it is spent.

With the patience of my wife and the help of Ruanne, I am carving out family days and thinking about others' schedules when I plan mine. My tension is to do this and yet be ready to jump in and help someone who needs it, even when it invades my personal time. Many times Jesus went away by himself, or with his disciples. By doing this, he shows me that I have a need and permission to take time for spiritual renewal. For someone who is always busy doing something, this is a hard thing to learn and practice. Sometimes I fear that I'll become lazy and not accomplish anything, but I guess Jesus accomplished quite a bit so I can to, even with an occasional day off.