Sermonizing??

Today I preached my first sermon...a very new and different experience for me. In my past job I often had to do presentations and spoke on several other occasions, but this was just different. This whole deal of the Holy Spirit speaking through you changes everything. I really sensed that the Holy Spirit showed up a few weeks ago one late night when this message really hit me...living in response to grace. It was like the flood gates opened and the whole sermon just poured out of me. But after that I began to refine it, analyze it, organize it, and basically beat it to death. But this whole time I just did not feel the same burn in my heart as I did that first night when it all just overflowed into messy notes onto my notebook paper. As I went over my outline and spoke the message out in my mind the last few days, I just did not have that same original passion...almost like I was missing something. Was what I was missing the Holy Spirit?? Early this morning as I was going over everything one last time I just realized that I had done all I could do...it was time to just leave the rest as open space for God to do the final work...and he did.

It's so hard to judge how one's own sermon goes. I'm actually trying not to think about it at all...but I'm tempted to replay it in my mind and analyze every word I can remember but I feel like I just need to leave it alone. I was overwhelmed as I was speaking and even choked up a few times. I definately felt more enabled to articulate clearly and precisely things that I could not get down as I prepared. I think that what I was feeling was the Holy Spirit guiding my words. This is all new to me. It's almost like my little son Benjamin learning to walk for the first time...he's akwardly stumbling around not knowing how or what exactly he's doing.

chicken fingers and french fries please...

Last Friday night we had a family date with our good friends, Alison and Brandon. We had been craving "Mexican" for the last few weeks so we ventured into Lexington to eat at a place that I now can't remember the name of. By the time we got there and were seated we were all starving. It was like a tornado came through and hit the chips and salsa. Leslie and I were so hungry and excited about eating out that we were glued to our menu's. When the waiter came to take our orders Leslie went with a some kind of burrito supreme and I ordered a chimachanga. The waiter then pointed to Benmamin (our 1.5 year old son who was chewing on several straws at the end of the table) and said, "What about him?" We were both stunned...we had somehow gotten lost in our own little world of burrito's and chimachanga's and didn't even think about what Benjamin could eat...I know, it's pretty sad. The waiter handed us a children's menu: mexican hamburger...kid's tacos...chicken fingers and french fries...chicken quesadillas. We both perused the options and then the neatest thing happened. Without speaking, we glanced at eachother and just knew what to get. There was no, "so what do you think" or "what's going to be the least messy?". We both just new. I looked back at the waiter and said, "chicken fingers and french fries please". We ended up having a great dinner but totally ate way to much.

The next day Brandon and I were talking over some things we were both experiencing in our journey with God when it hit me...what had happened the night before with Leslie...this is what it's like to be in that deep intimate friendship with God. It's like your both on the same page...the desires of your heart and His heart are the same...you don't even have to think about things...you just know...you become ONE.

This spring semester our seminary community has been focusing on Jesus' prayer for us in John 17: 20"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be ONE, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be ONE as we are ONE: 23 I in them and you in me."

I've struggled with this all semester. My first reaction is "this sounds like crazy talk". But it is a beautiful mystery. One of those things that logical number crunching guys like me are a little slow at grasping. But this instance with Leslie gave me a tangible piece for understanding this intimate relationship that Jesus prayed for us to have with his Father. When we are in continuous fellowship with God and have that deep abiding relationship...a intimate friendship like Leslie and I have...somehow your hearts are just on the same page. Your thoughts, desires and meditations become His own thoughts, desires and meditations. You don't have to debate or go back and forth about decisions...there is no doubt. It just happens. You become ONE! Is this little example with Leslie just a taste of the relationship that God desires with us? I believe it is. Thank you God for seeking friendship with us misfits!

The Great Debate is Over!

I'm officially taking the plunge into blog world. I've had this site ready to go for a few months now but my heart has just not been in the right place to get started. I've been holding an inner debate on why I should blog. Part of me has seen this as an expression of my pride and an opportunity to validate myself. It sounds like this, "Hey family, close Christian friends, people I respect and want to be respected by...come to my blog and be impressed with all the great spiritual stuff God is doing in my life." Sounds pretty scary doesn't it. This is the kind of junk that God has been bringing me out of in this first year of Seminary. The other side of the debate has been that this is an avenue to share my life with others in a way that gives total glory to the Father. So it comes down to this...my glory vs. God's glory. I think this is the quiet debate that subconsciously goes on in all of us and is decided by the posture of our hearts. My pride has conquered this debate for many years but as my distant and corgal friendship with God has grown into one of intimacy, the tables have somehow turned. Over the last nine months He's allowed me to see the mask of self-righteousness I've worn for so long...it's been pretty uncomfortable and humbling. But realizing how distorted I really am has made God's love that much more potent. By human standards, it's pretty much insane for him to love someone like me...but he does...and never gives up on me! When understanding the depth of his love and grace from this new place it becomes almost a natural response to pour out my life in a way that gives only him the glory. This great debate is over!