Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Spit Up

I think life is full of moments of spit up. Tonight I was watching Jake and he just spits up. I think to myself what causes that? Why in the world would he spit up just randomly? I mean there he is just chillin on the floor and all of the sudden spit up. That made me think about something...

How often do we just spit up? Actually even more than that how many times do we have the urge to spit up? How many times do we just say something nasty? There we are talking and all of the sudden something we don't like comes out. We might even be fighting the urge of saying something not so good. 

The reality of the Christian life is we all spit up way to often. We say things we don't mean and yes as much as we fight it, it still happens. That is our sinful side showing through. The challenge is to continue to quiet the spit up in our lives. As Christians we want to say encouraging things but then that urge comes up to say something bad. I am trying to fight the spit up in my life...I think the less spit up the better. I hate the spit up on Jake it makes all his cute clothes nasty.


Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Taking on Water


I think there are days when we wake up and wonder if this is true. There are moments when we look at what is in front of us and are not sure if we can do it this time. It just seems to hard and the journey to long to keep going.

Recently while I was at the Mayer concert I heard this song. It is a new song by Mayer. It is about deciding today is the day you brave the ocean. You ride on a raft and decide it is just your time to be by yourself with the ocean. We could go into so many deep thoughts about this. Which reminds all those readers out there why I love Mayer. His deep metaphors help me think so many things about life. We could talk about storms and being alone while facing them. We could talk about getting away. Surfers would say so often I decide to take on water all the time.

Right now Jacob, my son, in himself can feel like taking on water. His reliance on Mindy and I often times seem like such a new venture. I think the honest truth about taking on water is we all have to do it sometimes. I remember the first day of college I felt like that. I remember even the first day of Seminary feeling like that. I know that when my parents left me alone in Chattanooga for my vicarage (right Brown) I felt that. I felt like I was on this big ocean by myself and trying to figure out how to make it. When it is the ocean that is when we begin to think. What do I want and how am I going to brave this? It is then God comes in. And that amazing thing we could have forgotten to read our Bible for the last week or even missed church but God still shows His face. He still comes in and reminds us that He is there, while we might feel alone we are not. 

The idea of taking on water then reminds me of how many times I think I should do it on my own. How many times do I stand there and say it is ok God I got this one? But the reality is if I truly had this one, well then I would have been ok when I faced this or that...implying all of the times when I messed things up. 

That is my final thought while there are so many times when I feel like I am taking on water. May God remind me that He is there and more importantly that I need Him.