The Spiritual Signifgance of Recycling

As I sat on the lovely capital beltway this morning waiting as I sometimes do for traffic to move past a crawl my mind began to go over the morning activities.  Wednesday is recycle and trash day for us. I usually try and put the stuff out the night before but sometimes I forget or just don't want to go back outside in the cold.  So I had to put the stuff out this morning.  I am constantly amazed at how much less trash we make now that we recycle.  On a regular basis there is a half full can for the garbage man if that.  I'm not totally sure why this was going through my head but then I started to think about life in general and the garbage that clutters our lives.  Many times we let the trash hold us back we let the mess and the ugly that is or was, depending on where you are in your journey at this particular moment,  be the thing we focus on.  We point to some past problem, or transgression, or relationship and say see that thing right there, that's why I can't get past where I am with my relationship with God, my family, my parents, my fill in the blank.  We let the trash pile up and then just give up.

Most people in religious authority will state that we have to get rid of the trash in our lives, "let it go, give it to God, leave it at the altar,"  Christians have all kinds of ways to sound spiritual about the muck that's in our lives, and while I totally agree that we do need to get rid of sin in our lives,  I think we are at times way to quick to try and get rid of the lessons learned.  We want to walk on in our lives forgetting the things that we learn from falling down and getting back up, worse yet there may be no sin involved in the trials that we have gone through or are going through,  it could just be that God is trying to show us some things about our self that keep us from being wholly his.  They are not necessarily sin just stuff that is allowed in our life for a reason.

Rom. 8:29  God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.

If God is going to shape our lives around that of his son then we need to realize that some of the stuff we may be trying so desperately to forget needs to be recycled.  We need to recognize it for the tool that it is to bring us into a better relationship with God and to the place he ultimately wants us to be.

While God hates sin he can use the consequences of sin in our life to bring us to the place he wants us,  while he loves us he can allow the pain that comes at times from sickness, or loss or fill in the blank to work something in our lives that will make us more pliable and ultimately more human.

Humanity was designed for relationship,  specifically relationship with God, I know a lot of people want to point to what happens when the whole thing is over, some people think we are going to be some hyper X Mannish beings.  We'll be able to communicate without opening our mouths or be some self contained star trek transporter telling Scotty to beam us wherever we want to go.  I don't buy that.  I believe there will be no sickness no pain all that stuff but I think when the whole thing is over for us, when we shuffle off this mortal coil, we will be shuffling off the copy the thing that keeps us from being what God designed us to be,  when we stop existing in the corporeal we will begin to be what we were designed to be.

So instead of trying to forget all about it, instead of pushing it under the rug, it may be time to recycle what you were trying to learn, in doing so you will find that the things that got you here can be great to help you keep on moving.

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Who Has a thousand years? Who has a day?

I'm a big NLT and Message guy when it comes to my preferred translation or transliteration or whatever other educated word a Bible college graduate is supposed to use.  Mainly because I think God want's more than anything humanity to actually be able to understand and relate to all the things He had people write in that book.

37 years of Bible and yes dear reader I can safely say that even though I am just 37 years old, mainly because I know my parents and I know where I was the first Sunday after I was born.  37 years of Bible and I can still say that I have no clue about some things.  I don't get why you would think it was important to put all those geneologies in.  I don't understand how God who is a God of Love and Long-suffering,  a friend to sinners in the New Testament would decide it was a great idea to put in the Old Testament full of what seems to be violence and aggression toward sinners.  I will never begin to try and explain why Revelation is in the Bible, or why in the middle of all the destruction that is the Old Testament there would be the need to include an entire book about a man who tried to get away from the specific call that God placed on him because he didn't like the people God was trying to save, even harder to understand is how God could save them when he did only to destroy them later on anyway.  All of these things are hard enough to understand without adding in some antiquated verbiage and language that I have to have the Oxford old world Dictionary next to me to understand.  I'm no slouch when it comes to stuff I kow, J will ask me some obscure reference and for some reason I can give her the answer.  I wish this had worked to my advantage in school but hey whatever it takes.  Anyway I say all that to say I love reading NLT and the Message it makes sense and I really recommend them to you, especially if you have a hard time focusing on regular reading of scripture.

Most of the time these translations or transliterations or whatever render different verses in different ways.  Same meaning different ways of saying them.  There is however one verse that has almost the same wording no matter what version you find it in.

2 Peter 3:8 (New International Version, ©2010)

⁸ But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

2 Peter 3:8 (New Living Translation)

⁸ But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.

2 Peter 3:8 (The Message)

The Day the Sky Will Collapse

⁸ Don't overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day.

2 Peter 3:8 (King James Version)

⁸But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

What's the point.  Simple.  I hate having to wait on God to catch up with me.  Hear me out.  I get it God is always on time and I understand that if you read on in this same passage you find that God is not late in His promises.

Several years ago God put a call on my life,  like many people I fought that call for a while, then embraced it and then messed it up by trying to be the one that called me.  I don't mean that I wanted people to write songs about me and sing them to me, what I mean is I put myself into this position where I was doing things for God so much, this place where I had to fix things, where I had to be the one that handled the problems that popped up, mainly because I was the one that God called, me Aaron the "man of God."  God gave me a helper like he promised he would and I left her out of it,  God put me in great places where I could learn and grow and be supported and help support others,  I decided that I had to be the man,  God put up blocks, He put people in my way,  He drew and drew and drew me,  finally he gave me some rope.  I ended up flat on my back without much hope of being able to fulfill the calling that so long ago had been given.

See I had been so busy doing things for God that I left God out.  I was a one man Spiritual Talos. Don't know who he is?  That's him do a Google search.  He was so strong and so great but he had a weakness that he didn't even understand.

So here I am years later,  finally ready and willing to be the Man that God called me to be, not the man that has so much to offer but the man that God made and gave talents and abilities to.  It's been a long journey, not a thousand years but a long one none the less and I have to say that as I sit here waiting to hear about how this calling can still be fulfilled I hate waiting,  I hate God's time.  I don't have a thousand years,   shoot I dont feel like I have a thousand seconds.   That's the thing.  along with realizing that God's promises are not late,  and realizing that His gifts and callings are without repentance,  I still have that human side that says,  hurry up.

If you're reading this and you are a Christ follower do me a favor and pray that God will allow me to have a calm about where things stand.  Pray that the door opens and that I get to go through it.

I have always said that God gives us the desires of our heart when they finally line up with what He wants for us.  I believe with all that is in me that I am finally moving closer and closer to those things being the same, and while I don't think anyone will ever really achieve that state until we shuffle off this mortal coil, I believe with His grace and mercy we can get pretty darn close. 

"Everybody's working for the weekend..."

Everyone has jobs that they love and jobs that they have hated.  I have in my lifetime been able to have more of the ones that I love than the ones I have hated.  Looking at life the way it is I have come to relaize that the blessings that God has given me are so much more than I have realized.  I also know that for the vast majority of the people actually reading my blog this is also the case.  Sure things could be better,  that's usually the case for most of us if we were to be honest, but the important thing to remember is that things being better are not as contingent on other people and our surroundings as they are on us.  Look what Paul says in Phil 4:11-14:

        11. Actually, I don't have a sense of needing anything personally. I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. 12. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. 13. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.
(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Pretty intersting.  Pauls happiness and contentment was  his responsibilty.  He could choose to look at life and circumstances through they eyes of eternity, realizing that his relaitionship with God is really all that matters.  That one choice makes all the difference.  It's a focus shift that enables us to live in a different way.

How do we apply that concept of being content, of making the choice to be happy to every day life,  How do we put ourself into an attitude and mindset that truely says no matter what in the end it's what I do and say that matters, It's my choice.  Thats just it it's your choice and my choice.  The best part of being human is being given the opportunity to choose   So while most people work for the weekend, myself included I think it's time to make the choice to be happy, to say I get to instead of I have to.  To look at our day to day life through the glass of our relationship with Christ and say.  I can be content no matter what.

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The Man that I've become.

What a difference the years make.  This year J and I will have been married for 18 years,  18 years together with this really beautiful woman who knows me and my quirks and my failure and my success, and for some reason is still with me. 

Much has happened in those 18 years, I have been at the top of the world so to speak when it comes to ministry,I have watched God bring two of the most important, beautiful and special people into existence and then see fit to let me be their daddy,  I have obtained and lost the best job in the world,  I have spent time running from God, running to God, begging for my wife's life,  pretending that I could get away from the calling I was given.  I have gained experience that I never thought possible, I have laid out fleeces (not a practice I believe God really condones) given ultimatums, learned to accept help, and realized that I still don't always make the right decisions. 

I love the way The Message renders Phillipians 2:12 Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God.  I like to think that I have been doing this, even though there are times that I must admit I have failed at it miserably.  What I have come to realize is that I don't have a clue.  I have this one perspective on things,  I have one way of looking at the world and at our lives and my life in particular and I think that I have God all figured out and my life all worked out.  I think that I have the ability to see that I know better, that I know what God's going to do and what He's not going to do.  I look at what was and what is and make decisions on what can be based on what I would or say if I were in God's place.  

See I have a great ability to apply God's word to others lives but when it comes to me the promises are different, they don't mean the same thing,  they are for someone else.

Lately though I have a picture of God that is decidedly different from the one that I had most of my life.  I used to think that God had these big huge toes.  I know that seems silly but I pictured him sitting on this throne and me standing in front oh him not even coming up to the top of his pinky toe.  Silly really while I believe God is big I don't necessarily think it's a size thing any more.  The picture I have from the recent future when God looks at me is of him looking down at me with a questioning look in his eye, followed by a shake of the head and a laugh long low and hearty.   In that look and laugh it's Him saying "well you thought you had it all worked out, you thought I or the world couldn't use you, you thought your gifts and callings were irrelevant and not important any more, lets see how you do with this"  the WHAMMO, something comes from out of the blue and makes me realize that I haven't got a clue as to what God is going to do or how He wants to use me. 

I can say without a shred of doubt that I now know that I'm not finished when it comes to ministry.  I may not know exactly what it looks like.  I may not know exactly how it's going to work itself out, or I may, I may have realized that the door that seems to be opening is for me and my family to walk through.  The truth of the matter is that parts not really important.  What is important is that I'm finally willing to walk through the door that God opens, to take steps that just a few months ago I thought impossible and improbable. 

So for what it's worth I'm still working on my life being energetic, reverent and sensitive before God,  this is really what he wants from all of us,  A life lived chasing hard after Him.

Here's hoping.

Why Take Stock

So as I sit here on the last day of 2010 I realized that the few readers I have are probably going to expect some kind of take stock of the year, or some kind of what I want for 2011 or fill in the blank.  Why?  What is the point of taking stock of something that has happened?  I guess thats part of the human experience, and I would venture a further guess that the people who are truly happy, the ones that really get it, really understand what living is have come to the realization that going over and over and over the things that were or that we wish were or that could have been or whatever, keeps that person for growing and being what they can be or what they want to be.   So having said that I have decided that the obligitory year end rememberance year starting philisophical optomists writing is not really for me this year. 

Living life is a day by day thing, breathe in breathe out and just go from minute to minute, nothing more nothing less.  So why reherse the past or put expectations on the future. 

So instead of taking stock or resolving to do lets just think about what today was for Aaron.

Government offices closed, Most major businesses closed, banks closed.  ARBOR E and T OPEN.

I'm just sayin...

A Holiday For the Rest of us (festivus)

Living in the DC area one can definately see the appeal to this oft-times under appreciated holiday.  The feats of strength aside, I really like the idea of the airing of grievances.  I for one have several. 

1.  I 270 and Beltway Traffic.  If you are from here you understand if you're not well just be glad.

2.  Christmas Lights,  I must admit that this year was not nearly the frustrating horror of years past, a horror that is completely self-inflicted.  I have this obsessive compulsive things or usually do about the way the Christmas lights are supposed to be on the Tree.

3.  Being told how horrible you look,  I have been sick for about two weeks,  I finally get back to work and what does everyone say?  Not hey Aaron good to see you, or Hey Aaron looking better, or Hey Aaron glad your back.  Nope,  "Hey Aaron you look terrible, awful, bad, sick, pale, eyes look bad.  Fill in the blank.  Thank you I realize that I"m not really myself and all that but really? 

4.  Cliche' religious sermons Nuff Said.

5.  Republicans in office.  Wow this one is really annoying.  As I listen to what they say and how they feel entitled to the offices and how their election is "vindication"  I get really, really, REALLY irritated.  I don't think they have the answers, I know that they don't speak for my views or many other people's views including members of their own party.  I have been disgusted with everything from Tax breaks for the rich and yes that's what it is there is no way to deny that,  to threatining to filibuster the New Start treaty, to deciding that the Dream act is dumb.  I just really get annoyed every time one of them opens their mouth, especially McConnell. 

6.  Sarah Palin.  Do I really need to justify this one?  I mean really come on.

7.  Missing people and places that were near and dear. 

8.  Cancer

9.  Friends that were but are not more.

10.  The Calling.

See those are the grievances I have, some make sense some may not to you and if they don't I guess that's okay.  See as much as I write and hope and want people to read and let me know they are reading,  The blog is for me, it's a chance to get my thoughts, feelings and issues out into the world,  it gives me the opportunity to get a different picture. 

Number ten will probably unnerve some people but bear with me while I explain it a little so you can get a clearer understanding as to why a calling can be a grievance.  When you live with something for 20 plus years it becomes a part of you yes, but it also can be a burden.  Don't believe me ask Jesus.  He was called, destined to die for the sins of the world, and he grieved that.  Don't belive me look at what happened in the Garden.  He wanted another way, he asked for another way, some would say he "made his peace with it when he said not my will but yours,"  I don't think so.  See there are times that we are resigned to our calling,  we don't like it, we don't want it, we wish we could get away from it but it's there, it's not going away it's what we are, who we are, how we live.  This is how I feel sometimes about my calling, not something to be sought after, or wished,  not something that I love or that I embrace, although I have loved it and embraced it, even had some of my happiest most fulfilling moments while living in it.  The problem is when you are on the other side of it.  People will say that you are still able to live your calling, or that you have to make your peace with things, or that you have to just enjoy a time of being built up.  All of these things are great, they sound wonderful, they make sense,  but they don't answer the calling, they don't take it away, they don't make it easier and so I have come to the part of life where I am resigned to my calling,  resigned to the fact that it is there, that it will always be there and that it is not going to go away. 

Somehow at the end of the day when I look at the things that I write it makes them manageable.  It makes them important in a different way.  It allows me to get them out and to see them and to touch them and then to make them into something that has meaning and can change the way I look at or do things.  Hope that it helps you as well.

The Measure of a Man

The past few days have been really rough. I have been sick, I dont do sick well,  I am sitting in a room with a vics thing that helps me breath and a cup of coffee to stimulate my lungs a bit,  asthma medicine helps a bit but there is more to this.  I always rush back a day after I get sick, this time I tried to slow down a bit and get well, and while I feel better today than I did on Tuesday I still do not feel myself.

Still sitting on ones postterior is not always the best thing to do, therefore I went on ahead and did some leg work to get the title for the paperweight that has sucked up money like Charlie Sheen sucks up booze.  I had made some calls and was told by some DMV employee that if I couldn't find the title but I had the Bill of sale that would be fine.  Just bring the bill of sale in and all will be well we can issue the title to you.  I'm sure you can guess where this is going.  DMV in MD said nope they have to have the title, but DMV in VA which is where we bought the stupid thing, possibly is differnt.  Yes well upon speaking to the individuals after driving and standing in line I found that this is not the case, whoever told me that it was was mistaken, I need the title,  I can always have the guy I bought it off of get another title.  Same day if he goes in, 3 to 5 days if he does it on line, 2 to 4 weeks if he does it by mail.  So I have dutifully tried to get ahold of the idiot I bought the car from, and have been looking for the title at home ever since.  Not a good thing as I still have that elephant sitting on my chest. 

I know this may seem like a rant about the stupid mistake that I made, yet another in a long string of them it would appear, but that is not really what its about, I have looked in the places the title should be 3 times over,  I am now looking in places that it could be or has no busienss being, in doing so I ran across old pictures and letters, and wow what a difference 18 or 19 years makes.  First the pictures,  young thin all my hair and if I look closley a fire and desire to make a difference in the world.  There was such excitment an attitue of bring it on.  I look at the pictures of me and of J together when we were younger and dare I say happier and I wonder what in the world happened.   I'm no longer thin, I no longer have hair, by choice of course, and the make a difference in the world attitude has been ground out of me, I can do anything has turned to I hope to do something, don't bring that fire over here in fact here's a fire extinguisher use it, and you can keep it whatever it is because one of the things I have learned in the 18 to 19 years since meeting my wife, who incidentally deserves sainthood for putting up with me, is that IT can get you into all kinds of mess and bring with IT heartache, misery, and failure.  Measuring the Aaron of today with the Aaron of that bygone time makes me realize that I dont mesure up at all to him, in fact I have let him down in key areas of my life. 

Along with the pictures were the notes and letters, a much more telling ghost of Aaron's past, rattling chains like Marley, and spouting platitudes like Jimminy Crickett in the Disney version of the beloved Dickens classic.  If the picutres didn't show a man with drive, and desire the words make it even more so.  Letters to J show a guy who has his stuff together, is sure of his calling and knows where he is going to be and what God has him on the earth to do.  Letters from J show a woman who has not had to deal with or go through the mess of being the Aaron of Christmas Present.  A spiritual leader, a guy who could do anything, a woman who saw a man that was strong and safe and had a life of ministry laid out ahead of him to end with teaching at his Alma Matter.  The man in the letters has been equally let down.  I dont measure up to him either. 

As I sit here writing, and coghing and writing and coughing I have some dampness around the eyes. 

I have these three ladies living with me who need me to be so much more than I am, I need to be so much more than I am.  I need that fire that I can do it that I fall down I get up mentality and I just dont have it.  I read, I pray I ask God for direction I ask that He helps make the right decisions, I ask that doors are opened and that someone will see that I have someting more to offer the world and the church than a has been used up failure.  Thats the bottom line, the thing that keeps me up that makes me upset that turns me inward, the failure aspect of it all.  

If you had asked me 17 years ago where I would be December 2010 I would have told you that I would be partnering with other youth and young adult leaders for camps, and conventions while running a youth group that was reaching into the world,  we would be gearing up for a Youth Christmas outreach to rival that of Extreme Home Makeover,  and a Pagent that would help people realize that real meaning of Christmas.  Instead I'm typing a blog post at my house trying not to cry for the things that are lost that can never be again. 

Today I feel  small...

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