Daddy, does God have feet?

I really like this: "I was pleased to discover the God of Scripture is much larger than this. Everybody who met God in the Bible was afraid of Him. People were afraid of even the angels, so the angels always had to calm people down just to have a conversation. I would think that would be very annoying if you were an angel, always having to settle people down just to talk. It makes you wonder if the first thousand years in heaven will have us running around screaming like we would during an earthquake, the whole time God saying to us in an enormous, booming voice, Calm down, calm down, will you, it's just Me." (From Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller)

That's how I had imagined heaven being like too. I imagine myself being totally afraid because I am in such a foreign place. My mom keeps trying to tell me that heaven will be a very comforting place and we'll feel like we're at home right away, but she's having some trouble convincing me. Anyway, the point of the passage is actually about fear. Donald Miller was making a point about how so few fear God and so many act like they are the center of the universe.

My high for the week: I saw the most amazing shooting star. It wasn't just any shooting star either. It didn't just last for an instant barely to be seen by anyone. I could see the fire blazing on this one for what felt like an hour, but was probably around a second.

I've been spending a little more time outside lately. I've been working so much lately that I haven't enjoyed the nature around me. I live in a small enough town that one doesn't even have to leave the comfort of their own backyard to see the stars. Although it might be a little better if I did. I go walking around the town in the country on my nights off and it gives me a little time to do some thinking. One night I was thinking about kids. I have seen a lot of amazing things happen with kids this summer. I have seen the death of a child, I have seen the birth of a child, I have seen children at play, and I have seen children who live miserable lives.

When I returned home this summer I was home in time to see the death of a beautiful little girl. She was only 9 maybe 10 years old and she had flipped her four-wheeler. It was a tragedy for the family and for the whole community. Our preacher said at the funeral that the little girl was in heaven and she had more understanding than we could even imagine now. Tears still form in my eyes just at the mention of her name.

I was part of a children's sports camp this summer back in Topeka. I wanted to become more involved with my church, and I saw the camp as a perfect opportunity. It was a five-day camp. Five days with a bunch of little brats. Great. My attitude changed over the course of the camp, however, and I was wishing it could last another five days. The kids had such an effect on me that I did not want it to end. I really believe that I got more benefit from the camp than the kids did. When we're little kids, I don't think we understand the way we really affect people. I gave a little dandelion to my single and aging neighbor for mother's day one year and I brought tears to her eyes. The funny thing about it is that I didn't remember doing that. My parents told me about it years later. No wonder she gives me hugs every time she comes back home.

The Global Night Commute was an event put on in April for the Invisible Children of Africa. The Invisible Children are children in Uganda who commute to town every night and back to their homes every morning just to protect themselves from guerillas who will steal them away and turn them into child soldiers. You can learn more at Invisiblechildren.com. In April, my friends and I joined many others in Topeka who joined many others cities around the world walking to various places in our towns and sleeping over night. We walked to the capitol and, since it was raining, slept in a parking garage in down town Topeka. These children have really been on my heart lately. I'm not sure of the reason, but I'm still looking.

Six days ago my friend had a baby. He is a beautiful, healthy baby boy named Aiden Antonio. I went to visit my friend and her baby in the hospital the day after he was born and I held that beautiful baby boy. I have always been one of the youngest in my extended family. I have one cousin who is younger than I am and I now have one second cousin who is about 2 1/2 who I hardly get to see. My lack of experience with kids is painfully obvious. I stood there just looking at Aiden and wondering what to do. Then my friend's mom asks me if I want to hold him. I can hold him? He was just born! Yes, I want to hold him! So I awkwardly did so. Look at this tiny little squirt in my arms. He's actually a living, breathing human being, and he is so beautiful. I always try to hold new born babies when I am around them. I think it is getting a little less awkward every time.

The point of all this little kid stuff is actually all about Jesus. A friend reminded me last weekend about a story in the Bible about Jesus and a bunch of little squirts like Aiden, except maybe a little bigger. He made me see the story in a different light. There's all these little kids playing around Jesus and crawling all over them while he's hugging them and kissing them and telling them how he loves them and how special they are. What my friend was wondering was what kind of person Jesus must have been for the kids to be so excited to be around him. They were obviously loving it so much that a bunch of selfish adults were becoming jealous of all the attention they were getting. Jesus was there to cast their selfish thoughts away by telling them to have hearts like those little innocent children or they would never enter the kingdom of heaven. The story tells us something about how important kids are too. If Jesus paid so much attention to them maybe we should too. It makes me want to find out what it was about Jesus that made those kids so drawn to him. I want to be more like that.


At the end of the Vacation Bible School program at my church last Sunday the Bible School director shared some very wise words in my opinion. She talked about how hard it was to deal with the kids at times when they were being bad and how frustrated all of the leaders got. Then when they were putting together the program for church they had been looking at the old program from the year before. The first thing they saw was a solo by Danielle, the little girl who had passed at the begginning of the summer. The director told us that no matter how hard it can be to deal with kids we should never lose our patience because someday they may never come home, and each one of them is so precious. So go home and hug your kids and tell them you love them. That's something I need to remember any time I'm around children and when I have my own kids. All five of them. ;)

My low for the week: There's been a few times this week that I've been really frustrated with my parents and I have had trouble controlling my temper. I really need to get focused again and get back to the way things were.

Discoveries: Godspell. My mom took me to the dinner theater in Dodge City on Thursday and we saw a musical called Godspell. It's about the life of Jesus. It wasn't a professional dinner theater, but it was still really good. I'd love to see the play done by a professional group of actors. I have a feeling it wouldn't be as good as this one.

Great is Thy Faithfulness

High point for the week: Thursday night I came home from work needing someone to talk to. It's not that I was sad or upset about anything. I just haven't had time to talk to anyone, and sometimes I just need to let everything out and I need someone to listen. Who better to listen than my mom. It's been a long time since I've been able to talk to my mom. We haven't been as close in the past few years. It was good just to sit down and talk to her like I did when I was a kid. I used to talk to her at night when I was too tired to even get up and go to bed, and it was one of those nights.

I realized I wasn't as close to my parents when I came home for Christmas break this year, and I told myself I was going to have to take control of the situation. I tried to tell my mom I was sorry that I had been so disrespectful over the past year and I was going to change. I was taking matters into my own hands. Apparently God had a different plan. I went back to school, hardly called home to talk to my parents, and only showed them disrespect the few times I did come home. I could not understand why MY plan wasn't working. It was a struggle to figure out what I was doing wrong. I wasn't praying about it. I didn't realize that this wasn't something I could do on my own. I began praying about it a few months ago. I prayed for my parents and my brother. Then I began to pray for myself. I prayed that God would intercede in my life and take control. And He has.

I've realized the power of a hug and a kiss, and the three most important words one could say to a loved one. When I was finished talking to my parents on the phone I would never tell them I loved them. It didn't seem important. They knew it. I knew it. It was more like an implied "I love you." For about a month I've started telling my parents that I love them and hugging and them and kissing them everyday. If I ever say anything disrespectul, I apologize. I've been too proud, and I think God is telling me it's time to humble myself. If you asked my parents how they feel about the change I think you would hear good things. I haven't been perfect, and I never will be, but the change has been good. Once again, I haven't done a thing. Giving everything up to my heavenly Father is what I should have done first. Pride is a hard thing for me. That pride kept me from a deeper relationship with my parents for years. The only thing I can do is let go of it and give my burdens to God. He will take care of the rest.

Low point for the week: Because I stayed up so late talking to my mom Thursday night, I came home from work exhausted the following evening. I laid down for a nap at 7:00 and woke up about 14 hours later. I woke up once during the night at about 3:00 because of a dream I had. I woke up crying because I dreamed my dad had a heart attack and died. I've always had dreams about my dad dying, but usually he is doing something completely ridiculous like cliff diving. Nothing this realistic. It startled me and I'm still pretty shook up about it. My dad's health has gone down hill in the past few years, and it's always been on my mind. It's something I want to help him with, but I find myself getting impatient and frustrated. I want my parents to know I am really concerned without being disrespectful.

Discoveries: Great is Thy Faithfulness is my mom's favorite hymn. She once told me that it comes from Lamentations 3

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."

Lamentations 3:22-24

What a great verse, and a great song! Okay, so what do they mean? I memorized that verse because it brought me a lot of comfort at times, but I never understood it's real meaning.

"The Lord's mercies never cease. The Lord's compassion never fails. The Lord's faithfulness never diminishes.

That defines God's immutability, which is a four-bit word for "He doesn't change." He has to remain faithful. Being immutable, He not only will not change in His faithfulness, He cannot change. He never cools off in His commitment to us. He never breaks a promise or loses enthusiasm. He stays near us when we are zealous for the truth, and He stays near us when we reject His counsel and deliberately disobey. He remains intimately involved in our lives whether we are giving Him praise in prayer of grieving Him by our actions. Whether we are running to Him or from Him, He remains faithful. His faithfulness is unconditional, unending, and unswerving. Nothing we do can diminish it, and nothing we stop doing can increase it. It remains great. His immutability never diminishes. Mysterious though such incredible constancy may seem, it's true." (From The Mystery of God's Will by Charles Swindoll)

I sat down to pray and think one night and I realized how unconstant I am. I am so unfaithful and inconsistent. One day I can be in prayer all day and the next day not even one thought will be turned to God. I turned my Bible to Lamentations to practice my memorization still not realizing exactly why I was memorizing it. Then I read the passage by Charles Swindoll in my Bible. Duh! God was there all along telling me what it meant. I just needed to listen. He is faithful. He picks me up when I'm falling down. He is there to carry me when I cannot walk. Even during my senior year of high school when I was being so disrespectful to my parents and going through what I would call a "spiritual drought" He was there. And He always will be.

Amazing Grace

My high for the week: I got the book I ordered in the mail. 101 Hymn Stories: Inspiring, factual backgrounds and experiences that prompted the writing of 101 favorite hymns. I'm not sure where my growing obsession with hymns comes from. Many people my age grew up with them in their small-town churches, and even in many cities. It seems like just recently many popular churches have turned to praise songs. I have nothing against praise songs. In fact, I use them as a learning tool along with older traditional hymns.

About two weeks ago I went to my regular church in Topeka. By regular I mean the church I've found and felt I've begun to become apart of thanks to a few good friends. The band played a praise song by Matt Redman called "Nothing but the Blood," and they also played a contemporary version of the old hymn "Nothing but the Blood." The night before church I was talking to a friend about how amazing God's grace is and how we grow through it and grow through our mistakes because of His grace. It's amazing! Everyone who goes to church learns about it in Sunday school, but do we really understand how deep God's grace really is? It took a night of many epiphanies to realize what God was talking about. It is so hard to comprehend what Jesus did for us by dying on the cross. When the band played "Nothing but the Blood" in church it just broke me. I spent the next week studying about God's grace, and I found so many amazing things.


"Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same things when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

'Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.'"

Romans 4:4-8 (NIV)

Nothing we do will save us. It is only by God's works that we are saved. We can do good deeds, but without the grace of God we would never grow and we would not be saved. Because of God's grace we grow towards Him, we grow personally, and we grow stronger and deeper relationships with our friends and family. I've discovered some of these relationships recently and it's been an amazing ride!

Low for the week: I was trying to talk to a friend about my experiences with God's grace, which is part of the reason I wanted to start a blog. It wasn't taken in very well. I felt like I might have done more harm than good. I was given this lesson for a reason though. I need to share it with people no matter how they react.

Discoveries: Green tea and 101 Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck. They go well together. Green tea is just very calming and I like to drink it to get focused. I've also discovered that is makes the drinker very regular!