Three Things I Love

I love my church family.  Yesterday was a Sunday that reminded me again of how blessed I am to be part of South Hills Church in Henderson, Nevada.  My friend Sean Stepleton, lately of Canyon Ridge Christian Church, led worship for us and I was humbled and honored to teach after such an amazing time of worship.  Our church was as full as I have ever seen it and so many old and new friends were there.  As I stood amidst our congregation and listened to them give praise and worship to Jesus, as I was led into God's presence by our amazing worship team, as I stood in front of them to share God's Word, I felt like I was doing exactly what God created me to do, in the place He created me to do it.  I can't imagine leading a better church family.  Love you guys.

I love my family.  I miss them every day.  I can't wait to get on the plane tomorrow night after our last Christmas Eve service and fly home to spend 8 days with them.  My youngest son Braden is developing into an amazing musician.  My daughter Skye is writing a blog right now that fills my heart with love and with joy as I watch God work in her life.  My oldest son Kyle has become the man of the house in my absence.  He is working full time, doing an amazing job, knows what he wants to do in college and even at 19 still doesn't mind saying he loves his mom and dad.  I am blessed.  I also have the most amazing wife in the world.  After 22 years of marriage she still thinks I'm worth keeping around.  Being separated for the past four months has made me realize that God absolutely knew what He was doing when He put Jo and I together.  Love you all so much and can't wait to get you down here with me where we belong.

I love my Savior.  Not enough space in the world to say everything that could be said. Words can't describe the feeling of knowing that I am saved; that eternal life with Jesus is my future; that this world really is not my home; that I was created to feel like a gypsy until I reach my true home.  As I read Hebrews 11 to our church yesterday I was overwhelmed as I read "the world was not worthy of them...because God had planned something better for (all of) us..."  I love my Savior because He has something better planned for me.

I think that perhaps at Christmas time, more than any other season, I realize how important it is to spend this season with your church family, your real family, and your heavenly family.

Three things I love.  

Christmas Gypsy

From 1979 - 1983 I spent Christmas Eve in Hong Kong (we were missionaries).
From 1984 - 1986 I spent Christmas Eve in Singapore (we were still missionaries).
From 1987 - 1991 I spent Christmas Eve in Edmonton (I think, those years are a blur).
From 1991 - 1994 I spent Christmas Eve alternating between Edmonton and Vancouver (with my new wife).
From 1995 - 1996 I spent Christmas Eve in Toronto (at my first pastorate).
In 1997 I spent Christmas Eve in Michigan (in seminary).
In 1998 I spent Christmas Eve in Williams Lake (teaching school).
From 1999 - 2006 I spent Christmas Eve in Las Vegas (with one Christmas spent in LA with my brother and our family).
In 2007 I spent Christmas Eve in Williams Lake (visiting in-laws).
From 2008 - 2010 I spent Christmas Eve in Edmonton (while I did post graduate work).
From 2011 - 2012 I spent Christmas Eve in Kamloops (where I was a pastor).
This year I will spend Christmas Eve in an airport (as I travel from where I work to where my family lives so I can spend Christmas day with them).
It will be different.  8 hours in either Vancouver or Seattle airport (I can't remember which one I fly in to right now) will be a new experience.  There might be a Christmas tree up somewhere.  Probably a Starbucks, or seven (if it turns out to be Seattle).

I've spent Christmas in a few different places.  I've never really known the feeling of "coming home" for Christmas.  Home is wherever my wife and kids and I are currently living.  That is the reality of bing a gypsy and I embrace it.  In fact, I love it.  It helps me remember that I am a transient in this world and I am continually on a journey to my true home.  

My point is this.  Where you are celebrating isn't as important as what you are celebrating, or better yet, who you are celebrating.

Emmanuel, God with us, is as important in Hong Kong as it is in an airport.  Whether you are alone in a studio apartment or surrounded by a hundred family members in a mansion, Christmas is about so much more than Christmas carols, eggnog, family, presents, and lights.  Christmas is about the Light of the World who came down into the darkness of our situation to bring us hope.  To light the way home. We are not alone. Because of Emmanuel, we will never be alone.

Merry Christmas.  

The Gym

I love the gym and I hate the gym.
I love how I feel after I work out.
I hate how I feel when my alarm clock goes off every morning at 5:30.
I love to see my weights increase, my reps increase, my cardio increase.
I hate to see the muscle heads who are ten times my size.  Do they live in the gym?  Steroids?
I don't want to be a meat head, but I do fantasize about having arms like Patrick Willis.  Pretty sure I never will.
I'd love to be able to run like the wind forever, or as Jason Bourne says "at this altitude I can run flat out for 20 minutes before my hands start shaking."  I'd love to know how that feels.  Pretty sure I never will.

Ultimately, the gym is a distraction for me.
It is two hours every morning that I don't think about how far away from my family I am right now.
It is two hours in my day where I don't deal with the pressures of work.
It is two hours where I focus on staying healthy, mentally and physically.

So I put in my headphones, cue up the music, discover new bands that my kids keep telling me about, and get down to working out.  I try not to let the people around me become distractions and I tell myself with every rep or every mile "I love the gym."

Maybe one day I'll actually mean it.

Blue Christmas (oh shut up cry baby)

I am missing my family right now.  A lot.  It is the Christmas season and everywhere it is beginning to look a lot like....well, you get it.  Trees are going up; lights are being hung on houses; families are out Christmas shopping in the evenings with their Starbucks and their shopping bags.  At church we are singing Christmas carols.  And here I sit, alone.  I know it was my choice to be here, our family made the decision and it hasn't been easy to be apart, but I think right now, going into Christmas, it will be harder than it has been.
I am not the grinch.  I love Christmas.  I love family.  I love presents.  I love decorations and lights.  But right now, I am feeling not so Christmassy.  Is that a word?  Perhaps I need a snickers bar or something cause I don't really feel like my happy Christmas-loving self.  I feel a little bit blue.
My wife would no doubt ask me "Why so blue panda?"  It's part of an old snickers commercial.....oh never mind.  I'm wandering.  My point it this, I would very much like to be with my family at Christmas.
Every time I see some happy family walking down the mall hand in hand with love in their eyes and presents in the bags and kids skipping merrily along I feel like walking up to them and saying......(I probably shouldn't finish that sentence).
I probably shouldn't post this blog either.  
But seriously, it feels a little strange to be out shopping by myself at Christmas.  I don't know why it didn't feel weird in the past, when I would go out by myself to get something for Jo so she wouldn't know what it was.  Then I felt perfectly normal.  Right now, I feel rather pathetic.
I know it is just me.
Did I mention I also feel a little blue?
What is worse, I wonder how many families look at me as I walk by and give each other that sad "knowing" look as if to say "I'm so glad we have each other at Christmas and aren't like that loner that just walked by us."
Maybe they think I'm out buying presents for my wife and kids, which I am actually, it just feels strange not to run back to the car and try to hide the present(s) somewhere in the trunk and then go back and meet Jo for coffee at Starbucks (or Tim Horton's or Second Cup or David's Tea) and pretend like I didn't just buy a gift and it isn't hiding in the trunk.  But I like that stuff.
Maybe I'm just getting old and sentimental.  Wait, did somebody say senile?
Here is how sad it got this weekend.
I'm at the Fashion Show mall on the Strip.  They are playing Christmas music.  There is a fashion show going on.  Santa is hosting it.  There is an elf helping him out.  It seemed like they were doing stand-up around the models as they walked the catwalk.  The models were modeling really ugly christmas-themed clothes.  I mean really ugly.  It was perfect.  All Christmas time joy and happiness and ugly sweaters and Santa and I really didn't care.  I was annoyed that there were people standing five deep to watch the show and I had to squeeze through them and around them.
I kept asking myself "Why are all these people here to see Santa and an elf and some stupid ugly sweater thing and hear Christmas music?"
I know, I need professional help.
No wait, I need a snickers bar.
Actually, I just need my family.
Actually, I just need to man up, realize I do have a family that loves me, and that on Christmas Eve I will get on a plane at 9:50 p.m. right after our last Christmas Eve service, I will fly to Seattle, stay in the airport for six hours (no doubt trying unsuccessfully to sleep), get on another plane, and be home with them by 9 a.m. on Christmas morning.
I'm more than happy to wander around a deserted Seattle airport for six hours.  I'm more than happy to travel all night if it means I get to open presents with Jo and the kids on Christmas morning.
I might sleep the rest of the day, but hey, I'll be home...for Christmas...
Enough said.

I am thankful

I am thankful.   

I am thankful for how much God has taught me this year about loving my family.

I am thankful that my family loves me.

I am thankful for my friends.

I am thankful for the church, with all its imperfections and all its beauty.

I am thankful that God loves me.

I am thankful for the voice of God speaking into my life.

I am thankful that I am learning to listen.

I am thankful for God's discipline.

I am thankful for forgiveness and grace.

I am thankful for second and third chances.

I am thankful for the journey.

I am thankful that this life is only the beginning of the journey.

I am thankful that death is not the end of the journey.

I am thankful that God is in control.

Community (not the brilliant TV show)

Yesterday was the kind of day the reminds me why I love the church so much.  While I am away from my family, and when the timing of our reunion is uncertain, it is the simple act of community in the church that at times keeps me sane and whole and yesterday, from start to finish, was a day of community.
Our entire volunteer team spent time before rehearsal giving thanks together as an act of worship. As our team prayed together and gave thanks together I was reminded of how amazing God is and of how thankful I am for a church that can still find things to be thankful for despite its difficult history.
During our worship time we had ten people from our church body come up and say what they were thankful for.  As these people talked about their thankfulness for God's forgiveness, for family reconciliation, for the love of a husband or wife or children, for the community of the church, for salvation from addiction, I witnessed more people than I can count in tears.  These were not tears of sorrow however, but tears of joy, of happiness, tears that we shared as we saw our own story mirrored in the stories of others in our community, where we all realize we are in this together.
That afternoon our church gathered at a local restaurant for lunch.  Obviously we are too large of a church to all get in to one restaurant at the same time, but over the course of 8 hours, with our missions team acting as servers, our church came together to eat and raise money for our next trip to the mission field of the Dominican Republic in support of our missionaries, Allan and Jackie Perez.  As I sat in the restaurant and ate food with my friends, as I walked from table to table and talked with new friends and caught up with old friends, I was reminded of the power there is in a shared meal.  Eating together is one of the strongest acts of community, which is one of the reasons I love communion so much.  I am eating in community with my eternal community.
In the evening I went to watch football with a family in our church.  I love them.  They have opened up their home to me on countless occasions while I've been down here and have always made me feel like I was part of the family and not some lonely loser with no place to watch football.  Sitting on a couch with dogs jumping on me, yelling at the t.v., discussing the future of the church, telling crazy stories from our pasts (like the time my band played for an outlaw biker rally out in the middle of the Arizona desert), and watching them love their kids the same way I love mine, I was reminded again of why I love this church community so much.
None of us is perfect. None of us are immune to hurt, anger, fear, frustration, stress, or worry. None of us has it all together all the time.  But none of us are alone.  We are surrounded by our community. The way God intended it to be.
Long live the church.    

Sharks

I hate sharks. I've hated them ever since I saw Jaws when I was 10. By accident. Right before I went swimming in the ocean off the side of a boat the came equipped with a "shark spotter" who would ring a really loud bell if there were swimmers in the water and he caught sight of a fin.  I spent the whole day on the side of the boat, too terrified to enter the murky green home of the killer fish.  I still am. Afraid that is.
This fear of sharks is irrational.  I know it.  As long as I stay out of the ocean, and apparently out of some fresh water rivers too now, I won't become a meal for some giant fish with dead eyes and long razor sharp teeth.  My biggest fear would be that I wouldn't become a meal, per se, but rather, just my arm or leg would become the meal.
I can't even being to imagine the fear of swimming along, or paddling along on my surf board (I don't surf obviously) and looking over straight into the eyes of a great white six inches away in the water. Just typing that previous sentence made my heart rate spike.
So, knowing my fear of sharks, my daughter gave me this little present for my office desk when I was home visiting my family last week.
Because I miss her so much, she knew I would take it and put it on my desk as a way to remember her and feel closer to her.  She also knew what it would do to me psychologically.  Apparently she literally wants to "love me to death"