Thanks to Matt Farrand for putting this together for us!

Last night my wife and I spent a couple hours talking to and praying with a wonderful woman who’s just been crushed by tragedy.  On my way into Panera today (my office more often than not) I’m listening to talk radio and the topic: sex trafficking.  Then I purchase my bagel, which sits for about 30 minutes until my appetite returns.  I open up the book I’m working through entitled: “Evil and the Justice of God.”  It’s not shaping up to be a chipper morning.

But as I’m grinding through my book, I notice a group of about 6 people.  I notice them because they are loud.  Lot’s of laughter.  Ages ranging from about 3 to about 80.  Then more people stroll in and join the group.  Each met with a chorus of hellos and even more laughter.  Stories are being told.  Worn out jokes are being recycled, and something more than courteousy laughter follows.

Within a few minutes the group’s more like 20, maybe 25.  It’s a roar now.  They’re getting some angry glances shooting from underneath the furrowed brows of busy people who’d rather not be bothered…but more likely because they’d like to join in.  The looks aren’t noticed, of course.

What a wonderful group!  And their joy reminds me of the mercy and kindness of God.  It doesn’t mask or counteract the sludge I’m still grinding through…it just points out the beautiful mess in which we live.  The constant tension of a world which is in horrific disrepair, but is nonetheless saturated with the presence of a God who makes all things well.

The holidays brought travels which meant a long road trip with my 10 month old son.  Daunting.

To sum up:

• Screaming before we got to Lenoir City
• Traffic jam in ATL (naturally)
• hours riding in the back with my knees under my chin entertaining a kid who has no idea what’s going on.
• A nasty poo.  Then a nasty poo leak…then unpacking of the entire trunk to get another pair of non-pooed-upon pants
• hotel…not a suite.  one room.  Sharon and I had to go to the bathroom and close the door just to talk.  Woke up every few moments to the sound of coos and scratching and sneezing.
• next day: rinse and repeat.

Bottomline: best road trip ever.

There’s nothing like being a dad.

1. Quiet Time- Always a struggle.  Always glad when I do it.
2. Going to bed early-Something about going to bed before I’m absolutely exhausted feels like a waste–but the truth is the only thing going to waste is my ability to think the next day.
3. Giving Bryce a bath- Seems like such a chore.  But every single time I laugh so hard it hurts.
4. Picking up the phone- When I call someone to talk I feel like I should have something to say that’s either important or profound.  I rarely do.  But invariably, when I actually make the call, I find myself have a meaningful conversation.
5. Working out- No explanation needed here, it’s just true.

Do you concur?  Any additions?

I don’t know how many times the Bible talks about the church being like a vineyard.  I know that it’s a whole lot.  There are thousand things that are significant about that.   I discovered a new one this week.  Surprisingly it was from an Old Testament passage. 

Ezekial 15:1 And the word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, how does the wood of the vine surpass any wood, the vine branch that is among the trees of the forest? 3 Is wood taken from it to make anything? Do people take a peg from it to hang any vessel on it? 4 Behold, it is given to the fire for fuel.

There’s a reason we’re so often called a vine.  If you think about it, any fruit-bearing plant would serve most if not all of the illustrations just fine.  But it always seems to be a vine.  I think the above texts give a clue as to why.

Vines without fruit are worthless.  Vines without fruit are weeds.

Trees without fruit can still be quite functional.  We can enjoy their shade, beautify our yards, build houses out of them!

Vines without fruit are tangled messes.  They house rodents and choke out other more productive plantlife.  They have no intrinsic value.

We aren’t trees.  We’re vines.

You know how when you’re writing about God you feel the need to capitalize everything that even loosely refers to him (or Him)?  Or is it just me?  The Bible doesn’t do it (or at least the translators generally don’t).  But to me, it just seems like the thing to do.  Fowler and I debated the use of divine pronouns one day for like an hour while putting together a slideshow for Sunday worship.

I won…but just because I was his boss.  He wasn’t budging-and he had a really good argument.  It was a good healthy debate on an interesting question.  So, I’ll pass it on, to you.  What do you think?

“Jesus, he is Lord!”

or…

“Jesus, He is Lord!”

I’ve always hated reading fiction.  Too impractical for me.  I’ve always gravitated toward stuff that’s directly applicable, today.  I’ve not read a fiction book since college, and never when it wasn’t assigned to me.  Never.  How many hours does it take to read a book?  Several!  Time is precious.  Am I to spend all those precious hours reading a book that doesn’t give me something I can go out and apply to my life or my ministry?!

Can’t you just tell how obnoxious I can be?

But then Casey Alexander turned the screws on me a few weeks ago and told me that if I didn’t read “The Shack” the world would spin off its axis, or something like that.  Then I saw Eugene Peterson’s quote on the front about how this book would come to mean as much to our generation as John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Process’ had meant to his (Bunyan’s, not Peterson’s-he’s not that old!).  OK,OK!  I’ll read it!

I liked it.  I think Eugene Peterson overestimated its impact, by a LOT!  But it wasn’t bad.  I didn’t feel like I was wasting away perfectly good hours on mere abstraction or fantasy.  But I’m not reviewing the book, I’m reviewing the fact that I actually read it.

Then I decided to read another one.  This one was a much larger endeavor.  I read “Christ the Lord” by Anne Rice.  I liked it A LOT!

So, I’m a convert.  And I’m trying to decide what to read next.  I just got a library card, so the options are pretty much limitless.  Any suggestions?

(Chris, I know ‘catcher in the rye’, and it’s already on the list…so what else?)

I often read the Bible with my smug pious face on. “Those silly disciples.”  “Those rotten Pharisees.” “Those stupid Israelites!”  “When will they learn?”

And, occasionally (though not often enough) I’ll snap out of my self-righteous pride, and realize that I’m just like them.  Just like those silly disciples.  Just like those rotten Pharisees.  Just like those stupid Israelites. When will I learn?

That’s what happened reading Jeremiah 42-43,

5 Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the Lord your God sends you to us. 6 Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.”

I hadn’t read Jeremiah in a year…I didn’t remember the narrative.  But you gotta know where this was going.  They weren’t going to obey.  I knew because I know enough about my own sinful humanity. I knew because I’m just like them.

“God, you just say what you want and I’ll do it.”  That’s a well-worn path.  Familiar.  “Lead me, Lord!  I’ll follow you anywhere! Just say the word!”  I know the path well enough to know that it forks when God answers that prayer–when he tells you just exactly what he’d like for you to do.

…the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie. The Lord our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there,’ 3 but Baruch the son of Neriah has set you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.” 4 So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces and all the people did not obey the voice of the Lord, to remain in the land of Judah.

Yeah, that path’s pretty well-worn, too.

So this week I’ve been thinking about obedience.  In some moments I think I’m pretty close.  In others, it seems I don’t even know what it is.

“Lord, give me the grace to worship you with my obedience.”

I have been a fingernail biter as long as I can remember.  Seriously.  I cannot remember a time when I didn’t bite my fingernails.  Down to bloody knubs sometimes.

This morning I woke up with about 4 of them throbbing.  Bit too far back.  Stings all day.  Isn’t that stupid?  So, enough’s enough.  I’m going to take a shot at kicking the habit.

I’ll use the blog to help.  Every few days I’ll post a couple more pics of my nails…in theory they’ll be less gross each time.  Not painted and manicured or anything, just less gross.  If not, then I blew it.  Or I’m extremely malnourished.

I got an e-mail this afternoon from someone asking about my thoughts on gay marriage.  My response is below.  I’m not sure that I followed the evangelical company line.  So what do you think?  Am I a heretic?

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*****,
Thanks for contacting me.  I’d be happy to share some of my thoughts, but I’ll first give the disclaimer that I often struggle with political apathy, and as a result my thoughts are often rough and undeveloped.  That being said, I’m not sure that my thoughts should carry much weight.  That’s not false-humility, I assure you.

The source of my political apathy, is that while i honor our governing authorities, I believe we must all submit to the highest authority, which of course is our God.  That vantage point colors my perspective on gay marriage.  I believe that marriage is a holy and spiritual union.  In God’s wisdom he established marriage and the home as the first institution.  Not the state, not even the church…it was marriage and the home.  In the Garden of Eden God gave away the first bride and performed the first marriage ceremony.  I don’t see marriage as a legal institution.  It’s a spiritual institution which happens to have legal ramifications.   The definition of marriage, therefore, is tied to God’s perspective, not the law’s.

The Bible is perfectly clear and unflinching about homosexuality.  It’s a sin.  So does God honor gay marriage?  No.  Is gay marriage a holy institution? No.  Marriage was God’s idea, so he defines it, not us.  What that really means is there is no such thing as gay marriage.  Not in God’s eyes.  The only eyes that really matter.

I don’t mean to sound harsh…but I don’t much care what the government calls it.  The gov’t issues contracts, God issues covenants.  No matter what the gov’t calls their contracts, they can’t institute the holy covenant of marriage.  that’s God’s job.  God doesn’t institute gay marriage.  The gov’t could declare my marriage to be null and void, and tear up our legal contract…but Sharon would still be my wife.  She wouldn’t be any less my wife than she is now, because God says we’re married. That’s final.

I don’t think that anyone should be discriminated against.  If we took rights from all the people who had sins in their lives, we’d all be out of luck.  So, once again, here comes my political apathy: give them all of their rights, and let them call it what they want–because ultimately God sanctions marriage, and he says no.  We can’t change that, so it doesn’t much matter what we call it.

What I wish is that the sin of homosexuality wasn’t so rampant so as to make this such an issue.  What I really wish is that the church would stop barking and fussing about what the gov’t calls its contracts, and put all of that energy and money into loving people with our whole hearts, and teaching them about Jesus.  Jesus: the one who sets us free from our sin, and saves our souls!

Does that make sense?  I promise I’m not trying to dodge the question…I just have a little different perspective on it.

…if you have any follow-up questions or thoughts, pass ‘em on!

Running the Race,
Aaron