Sword in Hand

An essay from 2009 One day about a year ago I saw a mother and her 4 year old son walking into a Home Depot store. It was near sunset and the shadows cast by the sun were long and narrow. The mother had her son in hand and was walking very fast towards the entrance when the son stopped in mid-step. He cried out in a very excited voice, “Whoah mom, LOOK at my shadow!” The mother replied almost immediately while jerking on his little arm, “Come on we are in a hurry!” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “ Be joyful always; pray continually; and in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. At one time or another we've all failed at living out that type of response to life. Sometimes we’re crabby, we’ve forgotten to pray, and we can been greedy or selfish instead of thankful. It’s seems we all struggle with wanting to both stop and look at the shadow and hurry up to get more done. Kids have such a unique way of seeing things. This little boy was so amazed...

An essay from 2009 My wife and I have the pleasure of being aunt and uncle to three beautiful girls.  When they were little, the oldest used to be really shy until you give her time to adjust to the new faces.  But on one particular visit, this was not the case.  My brother and his family had just moved into a new home.  I remember arriving there in the late afternoon and the oldest daughter had just finished taking a nap.  Her mom asked her if she would like to show us her new room.  My niece’s reply to that was simply a raised handing begging for us to take hold, followed by the words “Come on!” After taking hold of my niece’s tiny hand and was led into her room, she began to take out all of her belongings and show them each to us one by one.  We never asked her what she had; she voluntarily showed us all she had in life (which at the age of two pretty much consists of toys). In retrospect, I can now see how on that Saturday afternoon this litt...

An essay from 2004: A few years ago I was visiting my Aunt and Uncle. We were all hanging out in the living room when my youngest cousin came over by us to play. Immediately we knew there was a problem. His mother nicely asked him, “Do you need to have your diaper changed?” It was apparent to all of us that the answer was YES! She took her son upstairs to be changed. We all continued on with our conversation and quickly forgot about the situation. We forgot about it until we heard the sound of a little boy running down the stairs in only his new diaper with his arms beating his chest pretending to be a monkey. He was so excited to be changed and back in action; totally forgetting about the unpleasant way we all saw him earlier. As inappropriate as this story may seem to some for a church newsletter, looking back and remembering this has taught me a lot. Psalm 103:11-12 says : “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear...

Okay, I clearly haven't written in a long time. In these last few years we've moved to a new state, joined a new church, gone through various health issues, and our kids are growing up so fast it seems I blinked and 3 years blew by! But those stories will be for another blog (hopefully soon). In my next few posts, I'm going to post some old writings. I was cleaning up my computer and found a few short articles I wrote while employed at various churches. These date back to as early as 2004. I wanted to post these for a few reasons: I didn't want to forget the journey God has brought me on with being a "worship leader". I also think like these words are as relevant today as when I wrote them a decade ago.

What a journey life has been since my last blog ten months ago! I thought I'd come back from Haiti and be changed. I thought I'd start doing life differently right away. I went to Haiti, came back and almost immediately moved to a new home, survived massive layoffs in my workplace, have been sick so many times and have had countless other detours to how I thought 2015 was going to go. This has not been the year I planned and it hasn't been very fun. I last wrote about the simplicity of God's calling on our life. Follow me. The two words He is constantly asking of us. While I was in Haiti, surrounded by devastation and loss, I was overwhelmed by feelings I didn't think I'd have. God clearly spoke to me that He wants me at my current job. That following Him means staying right where I am. I've watched over these last 10 months how He has constantly shown me "see, I want you where you are so chill!" The thing is, I don't want to ...

Follow Me.  The two words that God has been asking of us since the day He created us. In Matthew chapter 4, Jesus uses those same two words to call his disciples in to action.  As I've been mentally preparing for my missions trip to Haiti, I've been listening to a sermon series called "Follow Me" by David Platt based on that passage. The other passage he has been quoting has been Matthew 7, which has much more sobering words, "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." "Arriving" It can be easy to get stuck spending our lives waiting to "arrive".  We are waiting for this magical mome...