God? You There?

Ever go through a dry spell with God? It stinks worse than a rotten diaper. I've been stuck in one of those recently (a dry spell, not a diaper)....well, its not so much that it came on recently but that I've begun to notice and be bothered by it recently. The reason for my spiritual apathy has alluded me of late, but then I bought a book. Its not like new books are rare in my life - I have something of an addiction to the written word. While I am somewhat eclectic in my reading tastes, I have a particular weakness for fiction. So........I picked up this book titled Embrace Me by an author I hadn't had much to do with before. It looked to be a rather standard Christian fiction novel - a little bit of intrigue, a bit of spirituality, and a bit of romance - standard fare. I was right in that I suppose - except that the romance wasn't between a man and a woman but between a man and God.
I guess it was a little on the emergent church side, about the new monastic movement. The lead character was a pastor of a mega church who seemed to have everything going right.....till God got a hold on him and set him on a different path - a simpler path.
I've read books from people calling to a return to simplicity, even some on the new monasticism. Each time I have felt something ripping and twisting inside of me..... I think God is calling me to something I don't know what, but I do know in part it is to lead a simpler life.
I think that the reason I've been going through this spiritual dry spell is that a while back I saw myself as I am and saw all that I needed to change and got overwhelmed, so I stopped looking at myself at all. Thats not a healthy thing to do. I have the bad habit of looking around me at all the things that need to get done and trying to make them all happen at once. Its like jumping into the ball pit at Burger King and trying to juggle all the balls at once. I never was any good at juggling.
Simplifying is complicated at times. The trick, so I've heard, is to focus on one thing at a time - baby steps. I'm trying that this time around, cutting one teeny, tiny thing from my life. When God got me to look at myself again, I mean really look at myself, what I saw sickened me. With all my trying to to ignore what He was trying to show me, I started ignoring Him as well.
It sucks to realize that you have been totally dissing your best friend. I'm going to try to put a stop to that as of now - from here on out my prayer will be "be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart." I'll be walking by faith baby-style!
Now where did I put those booties?

Remember Forgetful Jones?

Does anyone remember the old Sesame Street cowboy, Forgetful Jones? He was always forgetting everything - even his name from time to time. He was always one of my favorites growing up, perhaps because I have been known to forget a thing or two from time to time. We all forget things now and again. Often, come Monday morning, ask me what the sermon was about on Sunday and I will give give you a slightly sheepish blank stare. Oddly enough, I remember what the sermon was about yesterday - perhaps because it had to do with forgetting.
The text the preacher used was from Matthew 16, where Jesus and the disciples are in a boat together in the middle of a lake when the disciples realize they forgot something - dinner.* The bread wasn't the only thing they forgot (leave it to twelve men to all forget to bring dinner at the same time!) They also forgot Who they had with them in the boat and what had He done just a few days ago. In the chapters right before this story Jesus feeds 5,000 men (not counting women and kids) on just a few loves of bread and a couple of fish and had baskets of leftovers afterwards, and again on another occasion did the same for 4,000 men(plus women and kids). So there the disciples are in the boat, freaking out, wondering who is going to tell Jesus they forgot dinner, and completely missing the fact that Jesus could have made a whole herd of fish-sticks leap into the boat and a microwave oven drop from the sky if He wanted. They missed out on what He was trying to teach them because they forgot what He had done for them in the past.
I do that a lot - I forget all the amazing things God has done in my life and spend so much time worrying about some little, insignificant thing that I miss what He is trying to teach me. I go all "Forgetful Jones", standing there like, "what blessings?"......"what do You mean about all the times You made something great out of all my screw-ups?"........"what do You mean 'don't worry about it', huh? Of course I'm worried about it!" If I were God, I would go all "Bill Engvall" on my rump and say, "here's your sign."
In the Old Testament, God often had the people create monuments of various kinds so that they would not forget what He had done for them - often He would have them erect standing-stones on the spot where something happened. Perhaps we need to do more of that nowadays. Journaling is one good way to do that, another is writing down the good things God has done in your life on little scraps of paper and putting them in a jar so that you can pull one out at random when you need to be reminded of His faithfulness. I have a little stone on a chain that I keep to remind me of His goodness. Whatever it takes, we must (as an old preacher would preach every time he came to my church) "never forget!" what God has done for us.

*Matthew 16:5-12

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss...

Lately I've felt like a rock standing in the middle of a stream. The years pass, and I stand here as the waters rush joyfully by on their way to the sea, laughing as they go. They go and I stay, shifting an inch now and again as I settle deeper into the silky silt that lines the bed of this exuberant cataract. The waters jostle me as they pass, changing me in their inexorable flow, wearing me down, tumbling me about in the Spring melts. They change me ever; I change them never.
So it seems to me........when I am down at least, but.......God created the stone that silent and steady stands in the middle of the stream as well as the water that laughing swirls and twirls about it. He created them both... as well as the fish that flash and splash through the water and nest in the shadow of the stone... as well as the bear that seeks its flashing and splashing dinner in the shadow of the silent stone, deep within the laughing water... as well as the hunter that rests upon the steady stone and sips of the swirling water... as well as the eagle whose shadow skits across the crouched form of the hunter far below as she soars high above all with wings outstretched and motionless. ALL things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.* He made them to be what they are. What business does the stream-bound stone have wishing it were the the laughing water, or the flashing fish wishing it were the elegant eagle? He made them as they are; He does nothing without reason, and all the earth shows His wisdom and handiwork.**
Whats wrong with being a stone anyway? Yes, I may not rush on and live life like the stream, but I do sport a nice furry growth of moss, and thats something no rolling stone may say.

*John 1:3 **Psalm 19:1