Welcome To My Blog

I’ve heard plenty of Christians talking about partnering with God in His work. I think this is a great concept, but usually when that work is explained it’s incredibly limited. When people partner with God in his work, they’re often talking about building the church, and even then the church is so narrowly defined you’d think God’s work was exclusively about building small, academic institutions in which people study theories about God. I think God is truly working to build those small academic communities we commonly think of as church, but the whole church is much larger and less easily defined. God can see the church but we can only feel around in the dark and recognize it when we see a common Jesus in a neighbors heart. That said, I think God is working on much, much more than building the church. If we look at the work God has done, we see God has made beauty, so I think creating beauty is Gods work. We see that God has created structure and order, so cultivating a place is God’s work, too. God created love, and seeks to protect love, so creating and protecting love is Gods work and [...]

Very few good paragraphs come to me while I am sitting at my computer. Of course that’s necessary, but usually the ideas come while I am walking the dog or doing the dishes. Then I rush over to a pad of paper or my computer and take some notes. Because I have a dog, I end up at the river or a local park every day, just throwing a ball and watching her chase it down. It’s during these times that my book often comes together. A new chapter or a new thought will come to me when I get my body moving. If you’re stuck with your book, don’t hesitate to get up and clean the house. Just make sure you’re still alone and still able to continue thinking. Taking a walk with a friend might work but you’d really only be able to talk about your project. You’re still writing, even though it looks like you’re taking a break or doing something else. Stay in the writing project, but get your body moving to dislodge some of those new words. On a typical writing day, I’ll walk the dog five or six times, and each time I come [...]

Just yesterday my girl Paige and I were doing some grocery shopping and started talking about how much of life is lived to maintain life itself, that is we farm (or shop) to eat, we make (or buy) clothes, we monitor our bodies and employ them to rest and to exercise, all to farm and make clothes. After thinking about this idea more, I meshed it in my mind to the story of the Tower of Babel and how God destroyed a cultures attempts to reach God, a luxurious and ridiculous effort born from the modernization of the culture, the existence of a slave culture, no doubt, and a lot of free time. The narrative of that account combined with the amount of time it takes our God-designed bodies and minds to simply sustain our temporary existence leads me to some comforting facts: 1. God is not interested in using you to build anything that might be used to replace him or give you the false sense you can interact with him without giving him all agency. 2. What God wants us to do here on earth is something we can do while doing something else. And so I’m learning [...]