Spilt Wine

Well, Church has been something else as of late. It is far from what I thought I signed up for. I think for most of us, we want the easy Christianity. We want nothing messy, hurtful, or hard. Who wants to break a sweat while carrying their cross anyhow? I think that is why Church is hard right now, its a little messy and scary.

Over the last few weeks, Audrey and I, along with friends have talked about what church should be, as well as what our callings and responsibilities may be. A couple of options/ideas have come up, which has really got me praying and thinking.

I have been thinking that it would be pretty easy at this point to cut ties with the church that we love, in order to protect ourselves from any more hurt. It would be easy for us to start a home group/church and pick and choose who we worship and fellowship with. It would also be easy to stay at New Hope and distance ourselves, hang out on the fringe, again to protect ourselves from hurt. It would be a little more difficult to stay the course and facilitate a couple’s bible study in the fall. It would not be so easy to step-up and invest my life into the lives of our youth and lead a youth program.

It’s been almost seven years since I last did any sort of youth ministry. This thought scares me. I am afraid of the commitment, the responsibility, and the possibility of being hurt. Though, the funny thing is that these fears seem to confirm that I need to do this. I don’t think Christ calls us to do the easy things in life.

So at this point, I take a step forward with faith and trust, while hoping and praying that I don’t fall on my face or get hurt.

And away we go.

I was out in the field making my monthly probation contacts at a boy’s ranch for delinquent teens yesterday. I had it in my mind to arrest one of the boys for a violation of probation, due to his on-going aggressive behavior towards female staff. I told the ranch clinician and social worker, that I wanted to see this young man last, because there was a possibility that I was going to arrest him.

While I was meeting with one of the other residents, a staff member interrupted the meeting to inform me that the boy I was considering to arrest was running away (AWOLing).

I got into my car (work car) and race down a dirt road, then across a dirt field to cut off the kid from his escape. When I got out of the car I told him to put is bag down.

He replied “No” and turned towards me, taking a combative stance.
He yelled “What are you going to do, Rush me?”
I pulled out my pepper spray and replied “No, I am just going to spray you, now put your bag down!”

At that point he didn’t want to play anymore, so he put his bag down and then wanted to shake my hand. He begged me not arrest him. I told him get in the car and that we would talk about it later.

I ended up not arresting him despite my better judgment. I let him remain in the program, only if he agreed to a program restart. I told him that I was going to give him one last chance and that this was a chance for him to start fresh; however, he was going to start with fresh with a program restart. He agreed and I guess we will wait to see if it works out.

When I got back to the office, I shared the story with Sally. She told me that sometimes, it’s the Probation Officer who is the only one who believes in the person, when no one else does. That in it’s self is the greatest agent for change, maybe more so than any treatment programs, therapy, and lectures.

Hmm….. Maybe I need to put more faith in to those who are on my case load.
Maybe they need me to believe in them, just like I need people to believe in me. Fortunately, I have people within in my life who do believe in me, wherein a lot of these kids dont.

My Prayer this morning:

Oh God be merciful to me.
Lift me from the earth and cover me
I wait for you.

Lord, my cup is empty. Won't You come now and fill me up
Lord, my cup is empty. Won't You come now and fill me up

Oh God be merciful to me.
Lift me from the earth and cover me.
I wait for you.

Oh God be merciful to me.
Lift me from the earth and cover me.
I wait for you.

I wait for you
I wait for you

Lord, my cup is empty. Won't You come now and fill me up
Lord, my cup is empty. Won't You come now and fill me up

Oh, my Lord
I love Your ways
I lift my heart I sing Your praise
Oh, my Lord
I love Your ways
I lift my heartI sing Your praise

I wait for you
I wait for you

Lord, my cup is empty. Won't You come now and fill me up
Lord, my cup is empty. Won't You come now and fill me up

Your love is foreverAnd Your mercy is foreverYour love is higher than the heavensI reach up, I reach upI wait for You to hear me. Won't You come just a little bit closer. Your love is deeper than the oceans I go down, I still breathe And wait for You to fill me up. Fill me up Won't you come now and fill me up. Come just a little bit closer.
I will wait for You

-The Violent Burning- Forty Weight

Hope is hard to hear when Despair is screaming in my ear.
Help me, hold me, and sing to me.
It’s hard to tell what hurts more, bottling up my emotion or letting it out.
Maybe there is a fault to my design.
It has never been my intentions to cause hurt.
Regret is a hard pill to swallow
Sometimes the only comfort I can find it my pillow.
Don’t hold things against me.
Have hope that I can be better than this.
Have faith that I am being renewed
Have love for me despite my short falls.
Have confidence that I am still growing.
Hold my hand and tell me it is ok

My thoughts on creation.

Day one
- God created the Heavens and the Earth. (Notice the plural Heavens? Whats that all about?)
Blank canvas- dark, void and deep, yet Gods spirit was moving.
Creation of Light and it was good. (Good #1)
Light was separated from Darkness.
Light was day and Darkness night
(Notice the Sun and Moon has not been created yet? Where does the light come from?)

Day Two
-Waters separated by expanse. God called the expanse Heaven

Day Three
-God gathered all the waters of the earth so that the dry land may appear.
Dry land was called earth
Gathering waters called seas and it was good (Good #2)
God said let the earth sprout vegetation and it was Good (Good#3)

Day Four
-God created Stars, Sun and Moon to govern the time, year and seasons and it was good(Good#4)

Day Five
-God Created, sea monsters, birds, and fish and it was good. (Good #5)

Day Six
-God created beasts and insects and it was Good (Good#6)
God created man in His own Image according to his likeness to rule over the fish the sea, birds of the air and beast of the land.
God saw all that he had created and behold it was very good. (Good #7)

Day Seven
- The Lord rested


In a world of hate, violence, selfishness, injustice, poverty, disease, racism, and war; in addition to our own burdens, short falls, failures, mistakes, hurts, depression, addictions and dishonesty, can God still say what he has created is very Good?

When God created Adman and Eve and it was good, does he still feel that way about you, and I?

When God looks at us, does he still say behold, it is very Good?

Are we still created in Gods image and in his own likeness?

When I think of you…..
When I think of you…..
When I think of you…..
Everything is all right

You make the sun come out and shine
You make the colors in the flowers bright

When I think of you…..
When I think of you…..
When I think of you…..
Everything is all right

Becoming a better follower.

Like Brian McLaren, I too am finding new simplicity on the far side of complexity.

Within this Simplistic-Complexity of living, I want speak volumes of love and faith with actions, not just words. With the words I do speak, I want them to be few and well thought-out; not a spew of pulpit rhetoric. So far, I have failed pretty miserably at this task.

I have spent the last year or so of my spiritual journey, trying to relearn what it means to be a Christian, or as I prefer to be called, Christ follower. I found that a lot of my understanding and beliefs were based on Pulpit Theology and Pulpit Rhetoric. The things that I was taught to be truth, were really only perspective and relative.

I once held myself as a proud teacher, believing I had a firm grasp on what it meant to be a Christian. Today, I now see myself as a tyro in the faith.
I want to pursue and learn the simple truths of love, gentleness, and meekness. I want my words to be few. I want my heart to be big. I want to be better than I have been.

I just want to start over. Fortunately, grace allows me to.

The thing with love is that there is much emotion attached to the small things.

I fail to do so many of the small things. I am such a knucklehead when it comes to this stuff.

May I please learn to do the small things that cultivate love in my garden.

I have been thinking about the current life circumstances of some of my friends. For whatever reason, they have been dealt some hard blows and are working through stormy seasons of their lives.

I came to the conclusion that you can not achieve greatness without overcoming great obstacles.

So, to my friends who find themselves with health problems, work problems, leadership problems, relationship problems, and spiritual problems, I say keep on keeping on! Greatness is on the horizon!

You have no idea how happy I am at this moment!

For the last year or so, I have not been able to post on blogger from my home computer. For some reason, when I go to the blogger sign on page, it comes up all scrambled like and I am unable to use my mouse or the tab key to click the "post button".

As I was sitting in front of my computer tonight, I had an idea to use Internet Explorer as a means of logging on to the blogger home page rather than my CompuServe account. Sure enough, the page came up crystal clear.

I hope now that I can post from home, I will post more regularly.

Tim's ladder

The Son of God Suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
- George MacDonald

God is powerful enough to show you who God is.
- Diary of an Angry Black Women.

I came to realize something yesterday during church. As I was sitting there, I started thinking of all the things that need to be fixed within the church service, sound and music being the priority. I am not sure which is a bigger distraction on Sundays, the operation problems or my thoughts of how bad things have become and what needs to be fixed. After a few minutes of thinking of solutions to problems and things that I would do differently, God spoke.

He said to my heart, it’s not a matter of figuring out how to fix things. But rather, it’s a matter of learning something. There is something big that God is trying to teach me/us through this very rough transition the Church is going through. I just don’t know what it is yet. I just know we need to get it before we can fix it.

God help me get it.

I am hoping to buy a Porsche that looks just like this one, minus the rust.
Audrey and I are examining our finances to see if it would be a wise decision at this time.
Jason, if I am able to buy the Porsche, you better gets yours ready, because we're going to be cruising the PCH buddy!

I can only hope she loves me as much as ice cream

Fool: One who subverts convention or orthodoxy or varies from social conformity in order to reveal spiritual or moral truth.

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