Chapter One

So for months now I have been promising to set up a blog that has chapters of the book that I have been working on. I mean to do this, really I do, but something always happens and I don't seem to get it done. Well no more, today in this very blog post you will find a link to the blog that will be Aaron's Book Blog. Now you will probably find more than just Confessions on there, you may find snips of other short story ideas or novel thoughts. I have several things kicking around in my head right now.

So without further ado, I think that's how you spell that here ya go. A link to the first paragraph. Let me know what you think if you can.

http://aaronsbook.wordpress.com/

 

I tried for Aaron's books but it didn't work. Someone already took that one. Oh this blog is still going to be active. I have all sorts of other stuff to say when it comes to this whole life thing, and this is the best place that I can think of to talk about all of that fun stuff.

On a side note. While the world may run on Microsoft, everyone knows my feelings on the subject, and while I use Office for it's simple compatibility issues, I am doing a lot of my book editing now in google docs. Doing so allows me to work on it when something new comes to mind, then all I have to do is export to word if need be.

Also typing this up on an ubuntu machine. I love my macbook and will keep going with it of course, but sitting in the same room with everyone else that is hear, and yes I did say everyone else, I'm afraid God may be preparing me for another girl, with what will when J gets home from work be 5 females in the house company is here in case you were wondering, it's still better to be in the same general vicinity as other people.

Thanks for all your reading. Hope for some comments is you please, especially on the book blog.

I have some good news... and some bad news...

The journey of the past few weeks has been one that goes up and down.  There are so many things that seem to be happening at this juncture of our life and none of them make a lick of sense.  To bring you up to speed,   I guess it was two weeks ago I passed out on a Monday morning.  J was worried as was I, couple that with a head ache that had lasted for several days and it was time to go to the doctor.  Doctors are intersting creatures.  I wasn't going to but upon going to Work on Tuesday and almost passing out while there, and in the process scareing people.  It was decided I would make the appointment.  I did went and so began the Oddesey of tests,  MRI's showing white lesions on my brain, heart tests showing a heart murrmer,  eeg's all sorts of things.  At each visit I dutifully asked for confirmation,  the neurologist said I was not to drive on the beltway at all until things were resolved.  I would let people that I worked for know, on one attempt I got my bosses voice mail box and it was full,  meaning he doesn't even check it.  Today, waiting to go to the last of my doctors appointments I find out that they are no longer going to be needing my services.   Seems that even with medical issues they are going to down size me.  Bad news. 

Good News.  We are going to add another Newell to our family.  I'm excited about that.  More good news.  We may still be working for the church. Great conversation, so there is a lot of prayer that is going to be happening.  Every time something happens that seems to be a bad thing it's a teaching moment.  I am praying that this teaching moment will not be wasted on me.

So if you're a praying person please pray for us.  Pray for me that I dont lose it.

Thanks

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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...