Am I an Idiot?

Do you ever have those times in your life where you just feel crazy? You wonder how you got here. Trying to figure out if there is actual purpose to your position or it was just bad decisions? Man, condemnation comes quick doesn’t it? Looking for its opportunity, ready to pounce. It also leaves me wondering what we are doing in our lives to counteract those bad voices. Do we have just as many of those voices of encouragement and affirmation speaking to us? I know I don’t. I am very quick to point out in my own life where I could be doing better, but very slow to ask others for words of value.

Another thought about having those voices of encouragement; Do I feel shame for needing those good voices in my life? Does that make me too needy? I don’t hear anyone else asking for those good voices. Maybe I just need to be more gutsy in asking those that are close for words of love.

Living in Retrospect

I’m not sure how it works for a woman but it feels like most older men I talk to their perspective on life is addressing success and failure through looking back, not engaging the present. They say things like, I should have worked less and spent more time with the kids, or, I didn’t see this event coming and I should have changed things earlier. Or they talk about the good old days….

To be honest it feels like a cruel joke. Its like saying you wont feel 70% of what you are going through until you are on the other side. Or maybe that is the challenge of life, living in the present, feeling what is going on right now.

And maybe that’s where listening to older men comes in. They now what they have missed out on, or capitalized on. So why not listen to them? I know we rarely do, but maybe its time to stop and listen.

Take Out The Males

15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”
-Exodus 1

I know there are so many voices out there talking about how men in general are under assault. Men being passive on and on. I don’t want to sound like another one of those voices. But this passage caught my attention. No other passage has caught my attention like this; about the flagrant assault to completely take out a race. And to take out a race you take out the males, not the females. It made me think on a larger scale, on a higher level. How are we as men being taken out before we even get a chance to “become” men? And what race would the enemy be taking out now?

Being Misunderstood

What if you went most of your life being misunderstood? You’d say one thing, people would think something different. You would perform an act for a certain purpose and people would interpret in a totally different manner. I feel that way sometime. I take a young man out fishing and people think its about the fishing, heck or that its even about catching a fish yet it is not. Fishing or catching fish is just a context not the end goal.

I can almost guarantee that Jesus felt this way 99% of the time. Misunderstood by the teachers, his disciples, and his people. Jesus says he has to go to the cross, Peter is there to tell him no way. People think he is the messiah that will come and squash the Roman Empire and restore Israel, he goes to the cross. It makes me sad to think how much I do this to him. How much is he trying to show me one thing and I see it incorrectly? And yet the misunderstood is misunderstanding. Father, have mercy on me as I don’t get it and help me have mercy on those that don’t get me.

My Sorrow

Matt 5 Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

I was driving home from the TG lodge tonight. It is late and I am driving by myself. Most of the time I listen to music when I’m driving back into the Springs. Reflecting on the day. Trying to feel. Trying to slow down. And as I was slowing down I felt this.

What if I am trying to out run my sorrow? And no matter how far or how fast I run it is always at my heels. Waiting for me to reach exhaustion and give up. What if God chases after us with our sorrow because he knows we must wrestle with that first before He can give us joy? What if it is Gods kindness when He is pursuing us with sorrow? Almost like He wants sorrow for us first so he can trust us with His joy?

I am so afraid of my sorrow. Afraid of the reminder of my own brokenness, the places I hurt and have been hurt, and the places I am longing for healing and redemption. I am afraid of its consumption. I am afraid of how it makes me feel out of control. Sorrow makes me feel powerless, like a powerful river. It takes you where it desires, not where you desire.

What if the depths of my own sorrow is equal to the depth of my joys? Is it possible that those that those that know deep sorrow also feel deep joy? Like our hearts need to break down that far from sorrow so the joys of life and love have a place to go.

I have a lot to learn from my sorrow.

Everyone is Broken

I forget this. Everyone has their stuff. Their fears and insecurities. Most of this comes up as I a spend more time with those closest to me. I start to feel them annoying me, maybe being selfish, maybe not seeing me as an individual. I'm feeling myself get angry. And that anger may be justifed. Yet when I stop and think. I pause for a moment. I begin to see how they are maybe as afraid as or more afraid than I am in that moment. The fears just manifest themselves differently and my interpretation of that expression of fear is being seen through my own flawed brokenness.

And at that moment I have the capacity to love, to empathize. It is a moment of maturity when I can not only see myself but see others as well. Not dishonoring myself but also not dishonoring my companion.

My challenge is to hold both perspectives in tension. The fear and insecurity I own and the brokenness of my friend. Is this love?

I think of Jesus. When he was tired and needed rest and the crowds came. Wanting and Needing. And in the midst of his need for rest, saw the need of the people and offered healing and himself.

My baby daughter Sage (18 weeks) does this funny thing every morning when she wakes up. At about 630 every morning for wakes up and tries to talk out load….to apparently no one. She is not crying, she is trying to talk. Making awkward sounds that sound like attempts to communicate. Sometimes I wake up and just listen to her. It sounds so simple and conversational. I like to think she is talking to Jesus.

And it encourages me that my walk with Christ should look very similar. Simple and conversational. It makes me look forward to rising early to spend time with Jesus.