Side By Side

We recently got pictures snapped of our youngest boy Jack when he turned 2. Thought you may enjoy a side by side comparison.

I apologize for not keeping this blog up to date as much as I had originally intended. I want to thank all the people who have responded to me and said how much the blog entries mean to them. It means a lot to me that they are helping people.

Life is such a crazy thing, how it takes you on the ups and downs so quickly. Yesterday I was invited to play at a church in Eureka, Michigan. They basically had me play during what would be their normal Sunday morning services. I was able to do my normal show thing where I get up there and explain my songs and what I was thinking when I wrote them and how they came about, then play them for the crowd. The congregation was completely engaged in the experience with me. It was awesome! I think its amazing how God can take all these experiences I have had, filter them through me onto paper, slap a melody in my head and move people through the songs. It was one of the moments in life when it feels like everything was clicking and I was exactly where I needed to be. Then I woke up this morning to go back to my desk job. To sit silently, talk to basically no one, and program web applications all day. That transition is getting more and more difficult for me to make. From the huge spiritual high weekends, to the sit and stare weekdays. From every part of my body rejoicing in being able to do what I feel God made me to do, to every part of my body aching because I am sitting at a desk with a lousy chair, and my arms, wrists, and fingers hurt from repetitive typing and coding and error checking, and testing, and etc and etc... But that is a transition that a lot of people make, and I think its why God made weekends and Sabbaths. If I did not have that outlet and time away from the daily drudgery I am fairly certain I would go completely awol.

I have had lots of people tell me that my life is a mirror to theirs, that they share the same fears, anxieties, and struggles that I do, and that it helps them to hear someone else say it. Well I say it often, so I hope it helps... One quote from Oswald Chambers that has meant a lot to me...

"Are we refusing to enter the domain of drudgery? Drudgery is the touchstone of character. It is a 'drudging' thing to be virtuous.

The greatest hindrance of our spiritual life lies in looking for big things to do; Jesus Christ 'took a towel.....' We are not meant to be illuminated versions; we are meant to be the common stuff of ordinary human life exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God. The snare in the Christian life is looking for the gilt-edge moments, the thrilling times; there are times when there is no illumination and no thrill, when God's angel is the routine of drudgery on the level of towels and washing feet. Are we prepared to 'get a move on' there? Routine is God's way of saving us between moments of inspiration. We are not to expect Him to give us His thrilling minutes always.

The secret of bringing forth fruit is to abide in Jesus. 'Abide in Me,' says Jesus, in spiritual matters, in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Beware of putting on your religious 'blinkers' - 'I can live finely in this type of meeting, or with that particular set.' The Christian life is not a bandbox life. We must live where we can be tested by the whole of life. Are we preventing God from doing things in our circumstances because we imagine it will hinder our communion with Him? .....Our Lord and Master never chose His own circumstances, He was meek towards His Father's dispensation for Him; He was at home with His Father wherever His body was placed.

We have to learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God, and to learn to abide in Him where we are placed."