Tonight I find myself once again in that strange place between utter exhaustion and endless jubilation. I am happy with all that is going on in the church and in my life, and yet I am tired! There is also a little sadness due to the fact that my lovely family departed for Tennessee today, without me! I have a remodeling project going on with a great Credit Union in Springhill Louisiana that requires my full attention!
So, tonight I return from Bible Study to an empty house. Well... not exactly empty. I do have Jack the garbage eating, toilet water drinking constant companion of faithfulness. (You can read more about Jack in a previous blog entry). Jack is soundly snoring away on his pretty pink princess barbie bed.
I have just begun to appreciate the quietness that will be my house this week. No Pixar movie playing on the TV for the 2000th time. No sound of little girls giggling in the shower together. No sound of my lovely wife scolding Jack who somehow seems oblivious to it while he joyfully eats from the trash can. No sound. Nothing. Utter quiet. Well... Jack is still here snoring. But you get the picture.
It is amazing what you can hear, when there is nothing to be heard. In the stillness of absolute silence, it is possible to hear the faintest of whispers from the heart of God. Yes, I believe that God speaks to us in many ways, but there is something about that still, small, quiet, voice that can only be heard when the "noise" of this life is silenced.
No cell phone. No TV. No radio, or music. Nothing. Just my empty ears and God's full heart. It is in this moment that I find myself longing for conversation with Him. I hear God reminding me how blessed I am. How wonderful my family is, how awesome my kids are. Then, as if I could possibly need a reminder, I see a note. Not a big note. Not a long letter. Just a simple note in the loving hand writing of a 9 yr. old.
"Dear Daddy,
I am going to miss you very much! I will take a lot of pictures for you! We will call you everyday! Love you. Reagan"
It is those little things... those tiny little notes that we receive that truly mean the most. Like a symphony played in perfect tempo and composition, so is God's voice and loving presence when we need Him most. Most of us never stop long enough to hear the music that life is playing for us. God, who we tend to not think about until we need something or have a trial of sorts, wants to tell us how much He misses us, how much He longs to spend time with us, and how much He loves us.
The next time you have more than a few seconds to spare. Turn off the TV. Silence the cell phone. Turn off the radio. Close your eyes for a few minutes... and listen to the orchestra of life as God the majestro speaks to your heart.
Love, Honor, Service
Pastor Eugene
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Too Old to be So Young
Ok...so I have come to the painful conclusion that I am not the vibrant, invincible high energy youth that I used to be! I quizzed my more intelligent friends on facebook today about the old saying... "something is lost on youth!" There were many interesting answers but the correct one was "youth is wasted on the young."
Oh how I long for the days when I could roof houses all day long, hang out with my friends all evening and still get up the next day and do it all again. I suppose it is as close to being a superhero as I will ever get. Now my days are filled with crawling out of bed having felt like I just got in it. Listening to my knees grind and pop more than a high school pep squad techno dance routine. Putting my years of experience to work at the revered pace of a polka dance at the Senior Center and still going home so tired I cant fix my own coffee, or wash the dishes, or help with the chores. Ok... so that may be stretching it a little but you get the ideal. Yes, it would be easy for me to understand that youth truly is wasted on the young.
But last night was enlightening if not downright intimidating! We had the incredible Go Ministries team (www.goministries.net) at the church. Now for the unprepared let me just give you a quick tutorial. Imagine if you would.... taking a room full of 8 year old boys, giving them each 2 dozen Southern Maid donuts and a 6 pack of Red Bull and standing back to watch what happens next. If you could harness the energy produced by such an experiment you could power all of North America for 3 weeks! But even that amount of energy pails in comparison to the Holy Spirit infused exhibition of pure, unbridled energy that the Go Ministries team brought, shared, and imparted at New Life Center last night.
It was in this high energy environment of youth worshiping before God that I had this thought.... "youth is wasted on the young." But then, it hit me. Youth is not "wasted" on the young, it is God's investment in the young! You see, God knows what he is doing.... and HE chose to give the endless energy and vitality of youth... to the youth. But why? I realized last night why God chose to give youth the energy and the strength to worship with abandon... and dance before the Lord as if they do not have a care in the world.
The reason God gave them this ability is because He knows that they WILL dance and they WILL jump and they WILL worship before Him! Unfortunately, we old folks become to "refined" and dignified to just let it all go. It is sad to even admit that so many of my generation will in fact look down on the youth and consider them foolish and unspiritual. The truth of the matter is that many of these young people are much deeper in the spirit than we have been in many years!
My prayer is that God gives me the insight to see the depth of love that He has for them, and that they have for Him. I pray that I never get so old that I cannot just let go..... or so cold that I cannot just let God! May I humble myself in my own eyes and worship as if no one was looking, sing as if only ONE can hear and dance as if I have just been raised from the dead... because in reality... isn't that what being a believer is all about!
Oh how I long for the days when I could roof houses all day long, hang out with my friends all evening and still get up the next day and do it all again. I suppose it is as close to being a superhero as I will ever get. Now my days are filled with crawling out of bed having felt like I just got in it. Listening to my knees grind and pop more than a high school pep squad techno dance routine. Putting my years of experience to work at the revered pace of a polka dance at the Senior Center and still going home so tired I cant fix my own coffee, or wash the dishes, or help with the chores. Ok... so that may be stretching it a little but you get the ideal. Yes, it would be easy for me to understand that youth truly is wasted on the young.
But last night was enlightening if not downright intimidating! We had the incredible Go Ministries team (www.goministries.net) at the church. Now for the unprepared let me just give you a quick tutorial. Imagine if you would.... taking a room full of 8 year old boys, giving them each 2 dozen Southern Maid donuts and a 6 pack of Red Bull and standing back to watch what happens next. If you could harness the energy produced by such an experiment you could power all of North America for 3 weeks! But even that amount of energy pails in comparison to the Holy Spirit infused exhibition of pure, unbridled energy that the Go Ministries team brought, shared, and imparted at New Life Center last night.
It was in this high energy environment of youth worshiping before God that I had this thought.... "youth is wasted on the young." But then, it hit me. Youth is not "wasted" on the young, it is God's investment in the young! You see, God knows what he is doing.... and HE chose to give the endless energy and vitality of youth... to the youth. But why? I realized last night why God chose to give youth the energy and the strength to worship with abandon... and dance before the Lord as if they do not have a care in the world.
The reason God gave them this ability is because He knows that they WILL dance and they WILL jump and they WILL worship before Him! Unfortunately, we old folks become to "refined" and dignified to just let it all go. It is sad to even admit that so many of my generation will in fact look down on the youth and consider them foolish and unspiritual. The truth of the matter is that many of these young people are much deeper in the spirit than we have been in many years!
My prayer is that God gives me the insight to see the depth of love that He has for them, and that they have for Him. I pray that I never get so old that I cannot just let go..... or so cold that I cannot just let God! May I humble myself in my own eyes and worship as if no one was looking, sing as if only ONE can hear and dance as if I have just been raised from the dead... because in reality... isn't that what being a believer is all about!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Eyes Wide Open
It is 2:35a.m. and I find myself firmly entrenched in the midnight war, one side longing for the land of blissful dreamy sleep where I am a pro bassfishing, millionaire hunk, and the opposing side determined to prove to this old man that he CAN still function on only 3 hours of sleep in a day! It is at moments like these that I think of the craziest things!
For instance, I was just thinking about how butter sounds so much like the location it will soon permanently reside forever in, after being reincarnated as fat cells. Anyway... such craziness of random thought brought me to remember something my darling Lizzie dropped on us two nights ago.
We were sitting in the living room having just completed the nightly Battle Royal of getting everyone showered, hair combed, teeth brushed, homework finished and argument settled about the necessity of going to school tomorrow.... when Lizzie says "Mommy, I wish we did not have to blink, that way we would not miss anything!" This coming from the child that has never successfully kept her eyes open for a single family picture! I have gotten pretty good at photoshopping eyes on to her face!
After a few moments of laughter by everyone present, I began to ponder the thought. How long is a typical blink, and how many times do we blink in a day? I am sure that plenty of my hard earned tax dollars have been spent by some California graduated, tree hugging liberal to accurately determine this very thing. But to be honest... WHO CARES! Well, aside from Lizzie I would think the list of interested blinkologist would be a pretty elite group.
Anyway, after allowing myself to calm down from the thoughts of wasted government spending and fruitless studies of the Human Eye Covering Kinetic Yielding Excitement Action (that is HECK YEA we all blink for short) I began to think about what we really do MISS in the span of a single blink.
There are many things that can happen in such a short span of time that you would hate to miss, if you knew they were happening! Things such as a distant shooting star, the fleeting glance of a potential new friend, the flight of the hummingbird, or the rising cost of our national debt. Yes, all of these things happen faster than a set of rims disappearing at a Puff Daddy concert!
But then a sobering thought hit me as well. Someday, in the span of a single blink, our world, our lives, and our thoughts will change. 1 Corinthans 15:52 says "...in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Immediately. Without warning. No more time to procrastinate. No more time to labor in vain. No more excuses.
In the span of a single blink, everything we have labored for, lived for, and longed for will be changed and we will either bow in admiration to the Bridegroom we have waited for, or we will bow in fear before the maker of the universe who will judge all of creation! It is a sobering thought to think about.
So I suppose there will be many who will someday agree with Lizzie.... and wish that there was no blink, because when last they blinked.... they missed eternity!
Love, Honor, Service
Pastor Eugene
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