A Sleepy, Somber Kind of Day

I am sleepy today. I'm doing my best to not let it affect my work, but I
wouldn't be surprised if it is... oops. Had a wonderful weekend with the
family. On Saturday went out to a dairy farm where we saw cows, took a
hayride, went through a corn maze, and got pumpkins and raw milk. Very
fun time. Sunday we took it easy. We spent part of the morning at the
playground and had a blast with the girlies. While they napped, I did
some baking. Later in the day we went to Trexler Park and ran into an
old friend. Then pumpkin pancakes for dinner. Another great day. But now
it is Monday, getting back into the swing of things. I miss Hannah and
the girlies. I have been counting today, tons of tiny electronic pieces.
It's annoying work, but I don't mind it too much. I only get annoyed at
how tired it makes me. I have been listening to some old music from my
friend Glenn: Elvis Presley, Johnny Horton, Glenn Campbell, Tennessee
Ernie Ford and Dolly Parton. I enjoy the music immensely, but I always
end up thinking about Glenn afterwards. So it's kind of a somber, sleepy
day. I am trying to stay awake and focused as I count and think about
good times with Glenn. Back to work.

I can't believe how much I look like my dad in this pic!

I can't believe how much I look like my dad in this pic!

This Afternoon

I will be stuffing our fancy new generator boards this afternoon. We
built an incredible new generator which has far more memory and
capabilities than anything we have previously had. It is all surface
mount and can be manufactured as an analog board for a drop-in
replacement of our old boards, or can be made all-digital for our new
systems. Pretty cool. I am currently stuffing the extra parts to convert
a few all-digital boards to analog. I have to admit, I'm getting pretty
good at using dual soldering irons to solder on the surface mount parts.
Fun stuff :-).

Test. Does this work?

Test. Does this work?

No Break for Me

Woke up this morning to find that Riley has diarrhea... funfun. Quickly
took stock of what we had: Toilet paper? No. Jug of Gatorade? No. Clean
underwear? No. So I made a run to Walmart while Hannah cleaned some
laundry. I got to work over an hour late and now it is break time but I
have no reason to take one because I came in so late. Ugh. But the thing
is, this has been a crazy morning and it is only 10am and I am
exhausted! But, alas, I must wait until lunch. Back to work...

Pondering the Beatitudes

A few months ago, our pastor asked me to preach for a Sunday while he was out. I excitedly accepted and then began praying to discern what God wanted me to speak on. It did not take long before I felt a peace that He wanted me to take the congregation through the beatitudes. These first twelve verses of Matthew five should be incredibly significant to us all. In these twelve short verses, Jesus lays out the most comprehensive list found in the New Testament of characteristics that define the people of Jesus' kingdom. As with the rest of the sermon on the mount, these are very practical, dealing with our everyday lives in this physical world. These are not spiritual ideals which we hope to achieve internally or some fluff like that.

Now as I started studying these, I began to realize just how radical they were. To make a long story short, I came to the understanding by the grace of the Holy Spirit that the mainstream church system of today is not representing Jesus. All of us who have put our faith in Him are His ambassadors on the earth, we represent Him to those around us. But while we should be characterized by these characteristics from Matthew 5, the church today is known by entirely different things (political issues, worship styles, hypocrisy, judgment, etc.) and are therefore blaspheming the name of Jesus. God cares deeply about how people represent Him. Remember Moses? God told him to speak to the rock, but Moses was upset with the people and struck the rock twice in anger. He misrepresented God to them as being angry and frustrated. But that was not the case. So God told Moses that because he misrepresented Him, he would not be able to enter the promised land. As Moses represented God to the Israelites, so we represent Jesus to the world.

The following are my own ponderings on the beatitudes, led--I pray--by the Spirit of Truth living within me. These are the characteristics we take on when we become followers of Jesus. Whether or not our life physically manifests these is dependent on our willingness to lay down our lives before Jesus and therefore let our inward reality become our outward truth. I was tempted while writing these down to write that these characteristics "should" define Jesus' follower or point out that we should "strive to" present ourselves as such to the world. But the awesome reality is that when we were first saved, we received as a free gift from God the righteous perfection of Jesus! When you look inside us now, you don't find darkness and depravity, you find Jesus! So the incredible reality is that we ARE defined by these characteristics, whether we show them on the outside or not. But now let us remember the words of Jesus, "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." It's when we humble ourselves and give our lives to Him that these inward realities become our outward characteristics.

• “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5.3) – Followers of Jesus recognize that they cannot accomplish God’s purposes in the world by their own power. It is only by the work of God’s Spirit within us that we are empowered to live the lives He wants us to live.
• “Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5.4) – The world we live in is in a sad condition. Pain, suffering, and hurt are all around. The condition of the world brings us to tears. Followers of Jesus cannot look at the world and ignore its terrible state, but instead acknowledge the reality and let it drive them to do something about it.
• “Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5.5) – In the kingdoms of this world, the rich, the powerful, and the independent are exalted. But in Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, the least shall be the greatest. In His kingdom, humility is the standard by which greatness is measured, and the meek find themselves blessed.
• “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5.6) – Righteousness is a gift given to us by our loving God and Savior. Followers of Jesus live to make that inward state their outward reality. While others hunger and thirst for the passing pleasures of a fallen world, we yearn for our lives to reflect the righteousness of Jesus.
• “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5.7) – From whom much is given, much is required. Even though we each spent part of our lives ignoring Him, Jesus showed us mercy by giving His life for our sake. It is from the overflow of His incredible mercy given to us that we are left with no other choice but to be merciful to those around us.
• “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” (Matthew 5.8) – God cannot stand hypocrites. Jesus’ followers live lives of integrity, where their outward lives match their inward reality.
• “Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5.9) – Violence has no place in the life of a believer. We know that “vengeance is mine, says the LORD.” Jesus told his followers to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back.”
• “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5.10) – There is a huge difference between persecution for the sake of righteousness and persecution brought on because of pride, judgment and hypocrisy. Followers of Jesus whose outward lives match their inward reality will find themselves living radically different from the people around them. This is because the value system of Jesus’ kingdom is radically different from the value system of this world. This inevitably brings on persecution, but only for a time. Jesus’ follower look forward to a day beyond this where Jesus’ kingdom is fully in place and all pain, suffering, and sadness are things of the past.
• “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5.11-12) – It is an incredible fact that those people throughout history most characterized by humility, love, non-violence, mercy and righteousness have also been the most persecuted. They find themselves surrounded by a hostile world on one side and a power-hungry and judgmental church on the other. This is not an easy path to take, but it is the path that leads to Jesus. Blessings come to those who follow Jesus, and those blessings far outweigh the costs.

Time For Bed

It's late, time for bed. But before I go, I just wanted to write quick post. Today was a very good day. Everybody was grumpy, but for some great reason I was not :-). Church was absolutely wonderful. We had the best pre-reader class yet. Lots of singing and dancing, ribbon swinging and praise shouting, it was great. Then we watched an animated movie of Jesus' resurrection. We had my favorite helper in class, she's the kind of person so full of the Spirit that He just can't help but leak out all over everyone around her :-). I also had my guitar so we all sang a little tune about praising Jesus every day of the week. How many days does Jesus want? All of them!!! I love our little lessons we teach about Jesus. We talk about who He is and what He did. We talk about all the incredible things He made. We talk about His death and resurrection, but most of all we talk about His return. We talk about why He made us and why we serve Him. It really is a blast and I cannot help but feel uplifted in the Spirit following our weekly class. I find myself during the week wishing I was in class rather than at work or wherever. I wish our adult worship service was more like the kids's. It really does stink when form and order trumps the Spirit. I know that we strive to let Holy Spirit drive our services, but we still end up more-or-less following a script from worship through the carefully outlined sermon. Speaking of that, I am going to be preaching on May 29, which I am excited about. I am praying about what God wants me to speak on. I keep bouncing between Matthew, Romans, Genesis, Galatians, and Revelation. So it should be easy to narrow it down to one 50min sermon, right? We will see :-). On another note relating to church, my pastor's wife told me today that she is feeling that we should start a children's worship service which would run alongside the regular worship service. So rather than the children joining their parents and worshiping as a family, the children would spend the entire service apart from their parents, first in children's worship and then in their respective classes. I answered from my gut when she told me and said, "I'm sorry, but that sounds horrible!" As I continued talking, I realized I was bringing her to tears and I realized my wrong and apologized for my obvious lack of grace. But regardless, that is the polar opposite of what God has been working in my heart over the last couple years. I have been feeling more and more the impotance of keeping the family together in church. Jesus said, "Let the little children come unto me, and do not forbid them! For of such is the kingdom of heaven." He did not say, "Hey James, hey Andrew, why don't you take the children off over there and give them an age-appropriate teaching while I teach the adults. Rather, Jesus taught the parents while having a child actually sitting on His knee! And rather than use a child as an example of immaturity and childishness, He used children as an example for believers of pure faith. Rather than breaking up families and pushing kids off to the far corners of the church, I feel we need to bring them up front... and learn from them! Their purity of worship is astounding and their excitement at the person of Jesus makes me want to shout for joy! And if there is any institution which supports the unity of the family, I think it should be the church. Why not worship with our children in our arms? Why not teach the ones who cannot yet read to shout "Praise Jesus!" throughout the songs? Why not use each song as another opportunity to point them to Jesus and His love for them? Some of the best teaching moments I have with our girlies are during corporate worship. As we sing about Jesus returning I excitedly tell them what is going to happen! Plus they get to see me worshiping and loving on Jesus... what could be better than that? I have been studying Deuteronomy and God emphasized time and again the importance of bringing the children into all parts of worship as a means of teaching them God's truth and pointing them to Him. Sure the kids sometimes start jabbering during prayer and sure they sometimes want to dance in the aisles, but let me ask you this: What is wrong with that? They are children and learning and growing! And besides, I think we as adults should do more dancing in the aisles! Let me ask you this, why do you think the apostles time and again wanted to take the kids away from Jesus? It takes hardly a moment to know that they thought the kids were a distraction. Kids make noise, kids have a hard time focusing, kids laugh and decide to say something even when everybody else is quiet, but that is because they are children. They are still growing! This annoyed the apostles and they saw them as distractions and wanted to push them to the outskirts of the crowd. But once again I point out, Jesus did not see them as such. Jesus brought them to the front and even sat them on His lap. That same Jesus is the one I praise and worship every day. My pastor once said, "The children around Jesus must have been very well behaved and quiet and respectful for Him." But I followed up by asking him, "Then why did the apostles want them sent away?"

So there we go, you can see I am still processing all of this. I am praying that Holy Spirit will continue to work in me and show me and Hannah and our whole church what is right and how we can be more like Jesus. Regardless of where we disagree, I'm glad to know that our goal is the same: to be like Jesus. There we go, that's my post. Time for bed.