We’re going swimming tomorrow!

Probably my four favorite words growing up.

I remember waking up with a dilema:

• do I put sunscreen on now and endure the gross, slimy feeling so that when I get to the pool I can hop out of the mini-van and jump right in the water?
• or do I wait until I get there, put the sunscreen on, wait a few painfully anxious minutes until it dries, and then jump in?

I always wanted to be hot and sweaty right before I jumped in the pool.  I would ask my mom to turn the air off in the van on the way so that maybe, just maybe I could break a sweat.

And when finally in the water, after about five minutes of utter joy, my stomach would yell at me and tell me how hungry I was.  You know, the swimming hunger.  Feels similar to the post Asian-Food hunger.  I’d have to get out, shove down a sandwhich with wet hands, and then just as I was about to get back in to continue the very important play time, I’d hear:

Wait, Trae.  Sit out a few minutes to let your food settle so you don’t get a cramp in the water.

I’d sit for what seemed like hours, staring at the water, at my friends playing, at my favorite summer activity taking place without me!

Until finally I got the OK, and walked-very-fast-but-didn’t-run-by-the-pool-cause-I-could-slip, right back in the water.

I love summer.  I’m glad it’s here.

Want to go swimming?

Funny story – I read through Psalm 28 and wrote a bit of my thoughts down.  It helps me remember what I’m reading and prevents me from just skimming over the words without soaking them in.  Well I got to Psalm 28:8, and thought (yes, you read that correctly, I thought) that I read this:

⁸The LORD is the strength of his people;
he is the LIVING refuge of his anointed.

I loved it.  It made me start thinking about the differences between a living refuge and a lifeless refuge.  I mean think if you were lost in the middle of the desert, the scorching hot sun draining every bit of energy from your tired body.  The uncomfortably cold nights with winds that batter you constantly with sand.  How great would it be to find a cave to shelter you from the elements.  It’d be a great day when you could take refuge from the dangers in a giant, comforting – LIFELESS cave.

If a lifeless refuge is so great, how much better than that is a living refuge.  One that fights for us.  One that travels with us.  One that battles for us, to protect us.

I thought about these thoughts all the way to work, and was even stirred to share a bit, which I guess is what I’m doing now.  So I went to biblegateway.com to reread it and then got a little confused.  Psalm 28:8 clearly didn’t say anything about a living refuge.  I looked through several translations, knowing that I read that.  Then I called Jess, to have her look up that verse in the very Bible that I read this morning, because I knew that I had read it.

It wasn’t there.

Psalm 28:8 really says this:

⁸The LORD is the strength of his people;
he is the SAVING refuge of his anointed.

Haha!  I knew that I was a little bit out of it this morning, but I didn’t realize that I was delirious.  I’ve been sleep-walking before.  I must have been sleep-reading this morning.

God is a saving refuge…

…and God is a living refuge.

On May 19 (519), all who participate in 519 will give their day’s wages away to further His kingdom.  Half of that will go to Living Water who helps provide clean water by digging and fixing wells for villages who have no source of fresh water.  Go look at their website and check them out.  It’s a great site.  The other half will go to a new church start, The Dwelling Place, here in Arlington, TX.

We’re also encouraged to serve.  Use your lunch break to serve at a local shelter, bring your co-workers Starbucks, clean up the neighborhood park after work, essentially using every action in your day to bring light into darkness.

It’s how we should live everyday.  It’s nice to have things like this to kick us in the tail and remind us what being the church is.

For those not at Connect Church, you can participate as well.  Figure out how much you will make tomorrow, and give it away!  Living Water has an online giving section that you can utilize for half of your day’s pay.  Then, find a new church in your area and give them the other half.  To do this, simply go to Google Maps and search your “Your City, Your State church”.  For example, I live in Arligton, TX, so I would search “Arlington, TX church”.  If that doesn’t give you the desired result, I’m sure your pastor or someone on your church staff could help.  Share with them what you’re doing!

Have a great day!

Stubbornness very well might result in missing out on something great.

I know, not a revolutionary statement, but one that we need to let our minds rest on often.

I want to be able to ask the hard questions without hurting or offending.  I want this to be seen as an outcry from someone who knows that something isn’t exactly right, but can’t fix things on his own.  I hope this ruffles feathers in a way that is loving.  I want this to encourage us closer to our Creator.  And I hope that you see how passionate I am about the church and who we are in our Savior.

Think about what life would be like <->  if we stopped letting our own preconceived notions of how things should work <->  prevent us from seeing how things actually do work.

The church today has become highly irrelevant.  We (the church) have the greatest message in history, but for some reason we’ve become happy, do-what-works, routine seeking church-goers.  What “works” now as we see it, won’t work the same next week – and especially years down the road.  (In fact, if our minds are only on what works, then we’re a wee-bit off in our direction.)

People don’t care for the same, poppy music and feel-good messages anymore.  They get plenty of that from the radio and from our friend Oprah.  (Side note here on Oprah’s influence – she joined Twitter 28 days ago and as of 11:18 PM on 14 May 2009, she has 1,008,859 followers…President Barack Obama hit 1,000,000 followers 26 MONTHS after joining Twitter.)

We’re being a bunch of mules we are.  Singing and playing the music that makes us feel good, sitting through messages on Sunday wondering if we want cheese on our sandwich at lunch or not.  What we the church are not doing is equipping and then doing the very things we’re trying to get the rest of the world on board with.  People are smart.  They see us mules as broken and fallible beings just like them, while we’re stubbornly sitting on our tails refusing to admit our need for fixing.

The lost are searching for truth, wanting something concrete to hold on to.  The pursuit is seen everywhere.  Take soulpancake.com as an example.  It is a site asking all of the tough, uncomfortable questions that so many think on. It is devoted to making the taboo questions about spirituality OK to talk about – you know the ones that you always think about but are afraid to ask because you’re not supposed to (and then even some questions you’ve never thought about).  I’d love to say that this was a resource (with some Biblical alterations) that the Christian church created and is utilizing to share the Truth, but it’s not.  The site attracts thousands of normal people from society today seeking out answers wherever they can be found. The world is asking questions that make you squirm in your seat because you don’t want to think about it.  You know, the subjects that you hope and pray won’t be talked about at church.

How can we be a relevant light in the darkness when those in darkness have more passion about their spirituality than those in the Light?  We spend too much time telling the sleeping ones how much they’ve lost their way while we, the “righteous” ones are a bit brain dead at times.

I know that so many good things are happening as a result of the church today.  I know that churches around the world are seeking God’s heart fervently and doing His work zealously.  I just have this weight on my own heart, that if we don’t stop the bleeding now, the wounds will spread.

I know how this ends.  He’s spelled it out for us.  Believers:  we are in this together.  Be encouraged.  Let us put down our stubbornness (me being the worst and needing this the most) and not miss out on His great work.

http://traeandjess.blogspot.com/