Numbness vs Awe Inspired

An interesting reality has crept in to my being in the past few months; I have become numb. The realization of this began a couple of weeks ago when we visited an amusement park in San Jose. We were in line to ride a water ride and as we ascended to the top of the stairs to the final platform, I was prepared for what looked like a relaxing ride down the flume in an oversized blow-up tube that culminated with a refreshing ride through a lazy river; not! So there I was with Deb and four other people propelled down the slide with an innocent gentle push. To our surprise we spun, fast, all the way to the bottom for what seemed like an eternity. One of our friends in the raft recorded the event. in its entirety. What I realized about the video was that I laughed out loud all the way down. This was not a simple laugh, but one of surprise and excitement, due to the unknown events. Later that night on the way home, I thought to myself, I have not laughed like that in a long time. That was when I realized that I was becoming numb to life!

How slowly this had happened. Isn't life supposed to be filled with joy and contentment? Yet, here I was just taking it one day at a time and not being in awe of anything. I believe that this is how the enemy works. Little by little joy had been stolen from my life, but I am confident that we were created for more than the motions of existence. In the grand scope of this world it is evident that God has created a marvelous planet with an exponential amount of wonderment and awe. When Boyden was around six or seven years old we were walking up the hill to church. Deb and I had been throwing small marriage jabs at each other most of the morning and our hearts were not where they should be as we were preparing to enter into our place of corporate worship. I remember that it was a cold morning and there were large snow-flakes falling from the sky. I was having an important conversation in my head about the mornings sparing events, when from behind me, Boyden, with his head cocked back, mouth opened and tounge hanging out said, "Hey dad, have you tasted the snow?" That is awe inspired by what God has made.

What was a slow fade of joy being robbed, I have rediscovered with awe in a few days. It has only taken a few minor adjustments to go from being numb to awe inspired. First reality is: It's not about me. Second reality is: It's all about God. Joy is robbed when we quit being thankful for what we have. It only took a few days to look around and begin to truly thank God for His creation. Evangelist, David Ring put it this way, "Contentment is not getting what you want, but wanting what you've got." Each day I am waking up with a new zeal to look for awe moments of God. Interesting enough, I am finding them in the smallest things that I was taking for granted. When the focus started becoming about doing it all for Him, my problem of numbness was taken away. My challenge of awe discovering has been given to my wife and kids. We are now beginning to look for times every day to be inspired by God.

Strecher-Bearer Friends...seeing the best in people

     More and more in life I am trying to see the best in people. This past week I was praying that God would help me to focus more on being in awe of Him and less in awe of myself. One of the ways that I attempted to do this was to write down five things a day that made me in awe of who God is in the world. These are just a few of the things that I wrote down: -I saw God in the beauty of my children. They are amazing on both the inside and outside. -God showed me himself in the beauty of a small tree on my daily walk to school. I got the sense that there is not a part of His creation that He does not have a purpose for in this world. -I saw God in a friend today who stop me between classes and asked if he could pray with me. -I saw God today in people coming to clean the house of a friend who is in the hospital. These were just a few thoughts that I jotted down in seeing the awe of God. As I look over the past week of my journaling, I can see that almost all of the places that I saw God was in His people.

     In the grand scheme we all have an inner struggle of what our flesh wants us to be verses who God has created us to be in Him. There is a story in the Bible found in the second chapter of Mark that demonstrates the best in people. It is the story of the four men that carried their friend on a stretcher to come and see Jesus with the hope of being cured. When they arrived at the house where Jesus was staying, they were met with the reality and discouragement that it was a packed house! The masses of people crowed not only the entrance, but also the inner parts of the house. I think at this point many would have given up and headed home, but what is demonstrated next is the loyalty of the paraplegic’s friends. They ascended to the roof with their friend, cut through the thatch, and constructed a way of lowering the man to the one where the answers could be found. The circumstance of what was seen was not going to stop these "stretcher-bearer" friends from getting their friend to Jesus.

     I am grateful that I have these kinds of people in my life. There are times that I need to be carried and have the humility to allow my friends to carry me to the feet of Jesus; however, there are times that God allows me to be that stretcher bearer friend to others. Hopefully I can have the courage to be both of the types of people found in this story. So, it is becoming a desire of mine to see the best in people first and not expect the worst. My prayer and responsibility is to be on "Awe" alert of God and point other people to Him and His awe.

As I fall apart, He picks up the pieces

 
I don't have it together, I am far from God, I cast judgments that are not for me to cast, I battle depression, I lack confidence in myself and God, my prayer life needs work, I have envy and bitterness in my heart, I have lost enjoyment in reading the Bible and do it out of habit instead of love, I carry burdens that are not mine to carry and the bottom line is that it is a struggle to hold it together. There are times, frequently, that both spiritually and mentally I feel like I am falling apart.

Wow! That felt good to say out loud. I hope I never get to the point where I think I have it all together. In all of this I am strong because, He is I AM and I am "i am not". It is the places that I am weakest, that He is shown to be the strongest. In these past four months of starting a new journey in life exploring God's call in my life, I have discovered exactly how weak I am and how strong He is. We have left all of what is familiar and pursed the call of God to “Go”.

One of my recent thoughts has been, "do I give the image that I have it all together?" I enjoy social networking like Facebook, but my post imply that I have it together. I always show the best of my life. People see our smiles, our happiness, our successes and all the other “great” and “fun” things that we are doing. What about the tears, the hurts, failures, arguments and other unpleasantries of life that show exactly how broken I am? The reality is that I am just as “messed up” as anyone else.

I watched a video clip on YouTube a few weeks ago that was called, “Pep Talk with Kid President” He quotes The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost and says, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled…and it hurt man! Really bad! There were rocks! Thorns! Glass! My pants broke! Not cool Robert Frost!” Isn’t that life? It’s hard! Being a born again believer does not mean that life is not hard. It doesn’t mean that I’ve got it all together. There is no promise that I will not experience any hurts, failures, disappointments, obstacles, sickness, death or brokenness. But what promise I do have is that He is with me through it all; no matter how “messed up” I am.

So there it is…I don’t have it together, but my God purses me with a relentless love that is perfect. The actuality is that God can’t lose me no matter how much weakness I demonstrate. There are no petal stools in God’s love. He died for missionaries, Muslims, Catholics, Baptists, homosexuals, atheists or (you fill in the blank). He died for us all and desires that we put our faith into Him completely. In His word we find the truth and He reveals who He desires for us to be. In this thought, it is allowing God to be God and me to be me.