Enkindling

Have you ever completely lost your voice? Completely? 100%? Many times I have had a sore throat and was able to speak in a limited fashion. Not this time. As I write this, my voice is completely gone. It’s amazing how it changes things. My voice is necessary for my job. As a result I had to cancel my class this week. Yesterday, without even thinking I drove up to a drive-thru to order some food. “What’ll ya have?” Silence. A friend of mine says “fast food is funeral food”. So I went to the store to buy something I could make at home. Of course my phone has ringed several times in the past two days without my answer. Would you be frustrated if this happened to you? I am not for my joy is being made full.

Lately, I have been surrendering more of me to Him. The less I speak; the more He can. The less I speak; the more I hear. The less I speak; the more I experience the quiet world around me - the world He created. My voice is gone yet my soul cries out!

Job 37 (The Message)

1-”Whenever this happens, my heart stops– I’m stunned, I can’t catch my breath. 2-Listen to it! Listen to His thunder, the rolling, rumbling thunder of His voice. 3-He lets loose His lightnings from horizon to horizon, lighting up the earth from pole to pole. 4-In their wake, the thunder echoes His voice, powerful and majestic. He lets out all the stops, He holds nothing back. No one can mistake that voice. 5-His word thundering so wondrously, His mighty acts staggering our understanding.”

Creation Calls

I have felt the wind blow; whispering your name. I have seen your tears fall; when I watch the rain.

How could I say there is no God? When all around creation calls! A singing bird, a mighty tree, the vast expanse of open seas.

Gazing at a bird in flight; soaring through the air. Lying down beneath the stars; I feel your presence there.

I love to stand at ocean shore and feel the thundering breakers roar. To walk through golden fields of grain with endless bloom horizons fray.

Listening to a river run; watering the Earth. Fragrance of a rose in bloom, a newborns cry at birth. — Brian Doerksen

Last week one of my close friend’s was dismissed from his job abruptly with little explanation or compassion. How could someone of his character and integrity get let go like that? What were they thinking? I assumed he would be distraught and angry when we met last night.

Bursting with freedom! That is the best way I can describe it. He grinned like never before while expelling a sense of contentment. Was he putting us on? No way! We know him too well for that. It was the real deal. He embraced his trial. My sense of loss for him had been converted to a sense of gain. His time of refreshment in the middle of his own personal desert was for all of our benefit.

Understanding your personal desert as a blessing starts with having the right perspective. God’s perspective.

James 1:2-4
2 Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. 3 For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.

Cheering you on Brother!

Dear Rick,

I never met you. Never heard your music. Never even heard of you until last weekend. You were but a mere name on a flyer in my chair. A flyer that promoted a benefit concert in your name: “an amazing man, and a leukemia patient.”
Far from my typical Saturday night plans, I decided to attend a local church. You were the “Creative Arts Pastor” there until you departed us for The Place of Ultimate Creativity three days ago. Some say your life was short at 23. Many are asking: Why?

The tragedy of God is not that you were living and died young. The tragedy of God is that someone else besides you will die old and never have lived. Forever you will be in the Land of the Living…

R.I.P. Braveheart!

While this is my first blog, it is not the beginning of composition for me. That which I thought was the end now is not. I am a work in progress; hard work. I’m being rejuvenated at 35. Grasping the idea that half of my life has been lived on my accord has been painful. I left home when I was 17. Eighteen years of my way combined with an occasional request to God to help me get what I want, has not produced the results I longed for. So, I’m finally at a point where I am willing to be disarmed. How could it have taken me so long to get here? Why does it seem easier for others? Is this really fair? So what! I’m here and that is all that counts. It’s not my time but His. I am neither at the beginning nor the end. As sung by one of my favorite bands:

“tripping hard falling down onto the ground
cause I can’t stand up and I can’t fall down
cause I’m somewhere in the middle of this” — Dishwalla