How's Your Green-Thumb?

I hate gardening. I know that some people find it to be peaceful and relazing, almost Zen-like, but I can't stand it. To me, it's the worst possible way to spend time. Mainly it's because I simply don't know how to do it. Everything I plant seems to laugh at me and die. The grass in my yard is patchy and brown. I'm a busy person so it grows for to long before I cut it and when I do, it clogs up the mower and just ticks me off. So I just stop mowing and come back a week later and half the yard is up to my shins and the other half requires a nicely sharpened machette to slice through it. I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a green thumb.
I have this little 8x12 section in the front of my house that would be the perfect place to put a water feature or a flower garden or something to that effect. It would add so much curb appeal to my house but instead, it makes things look as if i'm running some sort of slum apartment building.
For the past 2 weeks, i've been watching as the weeds slowly overtake this little patch of heaven as it begins to grow so wildly that it is now running over the side of the retaining wall off of the side-walk. I know that 2 weeks ago I should have started tending to it but i've been busy with work and church and anything else that I can involve myself in so that I don't have to take care of this jungle.
But sitting on my porch, reading a good book I might add, it simply got to me and I had to do something about it. Since I didn't have a large enough blow-torch to nuke it all in one fell swoop, I had to get down in the dirt and one-by-one extract all the pesky weeds. Grabbing them by the roots(cause at least I know to do it that way) I pulled the weeds out of the area and began returning it to the way it was before they started creeping in. It was a daunting task that even thought I complained about how I could be better spending my time reading or listening to music or watching a documentary, it really only took a short while to remove everything(well, just about everything).
Now the area is cleaned up. The weeds are gone. The ugliness that that made my beautiful Victorian look like a slum has been returned to its once former beauty.
I can't help but see the correlation between this patch of land and my own life sometimes. It is easy to become complacent and placid about our walk with God. We go along life thinking that all is well until a small weed begins to creep up in our life. Perhaps it is nothing significant. A small infraction against God's will for us. A tiny besetting sin that causes a mere hiccup along the road. But soon enough and before we realize it, this minor infraction has turned into something that requires the skill of a master gardener to remedy. What we once saw as only a small insignificant sin has now turned into a garden of fleshly, wanton disregard for God's word. It entangles us. It hinders us. It causes us to fall away from God's good graces and we head down a steady road of self destruction until we are lost in the jungles of life.
Sometimes our sin is easy to ignore, but eventually, it catches up to us. What was something that only I could see, now everyone else who passes by begins to notice and looks on with disgust.
Doing the much needed pruning in my front yard is simple, but pruning sin out of my life can be frought with anger, frustration and guilt. It is needed however if we are to maintain a right relationship with God the Father.
What areas of your life could use some weeding? Is it something that you've been putting off for some time? Is it to a point where others are beginning to notice?
Start cleaning up today. Don't put it off any longer and begin to seek forgiveness. Praise God that we serve a risen Savior who doesn't mind doing the dirty work in our lives. He is more than willing to help us clean things up a little. We have only to ask.
Start doing your "life gardening" today.

In Times of Quiet Stillness

As I lie in bed and listen to the sound of the summer nights rain cascade off my roof top, I am drawn into a sense of quiet stillness. In this moment I can hear the sound of my thoughts, ever present, ever longing, ever speaking to me. I am drawn into a sense of awe and wonder at the beauty of God's creation around me. It is in times like these where I feel myself given a chance to breath and simply be still.
Stillness is an concept that I find foreign and yet so closely distant to me. With all the busy distractions that fill my ever changing world, I am caught up in the hustle of everyday life. Their are constantly things to be done, people to visit, deadlines that needs to be met, mouths that need to be fed. Their are relationships that need tended too and mended and healed. All the time, I am haunted by the needs of time that appear and then quickly vanish.
I find myself knowing that I should take time out and rest. Time to stop. Time to recharge my batteries and yet I press onward towards the next thing to occupy my time.
I am thankful for moments like these. However brief they may be, that give me a chance to simply stop...be still...and rest.

So many times throughout scripture, we find our Lord bombarded with people. Inundated with request and demands of healing of saving of healing. He is quick to answer and meet the needs of His followers as He knows they are in desperate need of Him. But despite the busyness of His life, He always finds time to escape the scence. Whether he withdraws quickly or hides away, He understands that He too needs time to Himself. Jesus understands that He requires intimate time to be with God.
Is that something that I understand as well? Do understand and see the need to withdraw into quiet places to be alone with God? It is in those intimate moments that one finds solice. It is in those quiet encounters with God that we feel His true presence in our lives. When all of the distractions have been put away and time has come to a close for the day, we sit still and know God.
So I listen to the rain dance in the night sky and I meditate on the thoughts God has given me and I cherish this time, however brief it may be, because I know that God is here.

Boxes of Ignorance

As I sorted through the boxes of clothing today that were supposed to be taken on a missions trip to South Africa, I found myself growing increasingly distressed at what I found hidden in the boxes and barrels of second-hand merchandise. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen laws and regulations, the clothes were no longer able to enter into South Africa, so rather than let them go to waste it was decided that they would be donated to local ministries where clthoes are always a much needed commodity.
While sorting through them, I began noticing the rather ragged, worn-out and out-dated condition of the clothing and I realized why they were being given away. It was apparent to me that the previous owners no longer had need of such clothing and perhaps in a good-samaritanesque effort, they decided to donate their used clothing to someone who could use it more than they.
1980's sweaters with shoulders pads that reached passed your head, blue jeans that were tattered and torn, t-shirts with sweat stained yellow under the arms and button-up shirts that even my grandmother is too hip to wear were only just a few of the articles that I pulled from the wreakage. "How could people donate this crap!?!" I angerily thought to myself. If this stuff wasn't good enough for the donator why should it be good enough for it's new recipient. After all, this stuff was getting junked just so room could be made for more junk that would soon inhabit the closet. In a country where wealth and excess are the norm, would it really be so difficult for a person to forego a selfish trip to the outlet mall to buy themselves something and pick up something brand new to ship overseas to people who may have nothing?

I was getting really ticked off as I sorted through this stuff, venting my frustration to the other guy who was helping me. Im glad he held the same opinion.

After everything had been packed up and made ready to be sent off to the next fashion victim, I decided to try and getting a different perspective on the whole thing. Fortunately, there just so happens to be a guy from Africa who would be the perfect person to ask. I ran my experience by him, expressing my frustration and dissatisfaction as I recalled just some of the things I came across. "So what do you think," I asked him, somewhat expecting him to side with me on the matter.

"Who cares," was his reply to me. Who cares!! But these people are getting third rate crap from people who buy themselves first rate crap just so it can sit on the shelf.

"But at least they are getting something they don't have. Something that may well enable them to simply live another day."

I really started to feel like a jerk. I had hoped that my African friend would vindicate me by getting upset and angry that his own people were soon to be victims of yet another ignorant American attempt at relief and aid. Only he helped put things into a better perspective for me, a perspective that I sometimes fail to realize as I attempt to peer through my rose-colored glasses.

Who am I to judge another persons motives for what they do... especially when I don't know what they are. Yeah, there was some crappy clothing in those piles, but how do know if that was truely the best those people could give themselves? Perhaps some house wife gave away the one pair of pants that made her feel skinny and good about herself so that another house wife in South Africa didn't have to walk around naked, risking the possibility of rape everyday. Maybe the 15 year-old kid who put his MXPX shirt in the box, knowing full well that the new owner of it would have no clue who MXPX was, thought to himself, "Maybe one day, some missionary will come across a kid wearing that shirt, recognize it, and have the chance to share Jesus with them and it's all because the missionary recognized a familiar face on a shirt." Maybe all those blankets came from a little kid who said to themsleves, "I know this is my favorite blanket. The one that helps me sleep through the night when I have bad dreams, but maybe there is another little boy or girl just like me who doesn't have a blanket to help them sleep through the night. So I'll give them mine."

Perhaps the most revealing(and disturbing) thing to me about my little tirad is the question of what did I do while all these clothes were coming in to be packaged? Did I lend a helping hand by giving up a few pairs of jeans? Did I put just 2 or 3 of the umpteen tshirts that I never wear into the boxes? How many pairs of brand new shoes that I have sitting under the bed that I never wear did I pack up to be shipped over to South Africa? The answer...I did nothing. Actually, no, I did do something. I complained about all the space these clothes would be taking up as they sat there for the next few weeks waiting to be sent overseas.
It is easy to overlook things when we fail to see them from other vantage points. And it is easy to overlook our own short-comings and downfalls when we are so concerned about everone elses. Most times, those short-comings we point out in other people are really the ones we wrestle with the most ourselves, were just to naive and proud to realize it.

Sometimes we need to stand back, remove ourselves from the situation and peer back into things from another persons view in order to see things not just for what they appear to be but for what they can be and for the potential they might have to reach others.

Forgive me for my ignorance Lord.

(later that day, I took 14 boxes of childrens clothing to a pregnancy center for single moms, and 12 boxes of adult clothing to a shelter for the homeless and poor)

an addendum

This is an addendum to my previous post that I only put up a short time ago. I suppose that when a person wrestles as much with prayer as I do, they should simply prayer. Just stop everything, turn off the distractions, put away the books and just pray.
So thats what I did. Just prayed. I sought forgiveness for my complacency. I asked for guidance in my misdirection and I simply asked for the Lord to pour out His spirit on me.
Who'd of thought that the best remedy for a crappy prayer life is prayer. Duh!

The Power of Prayer??

I have to preach in church on Sunday and i'm wrestling with the topic because it's one that I struggle trmendously with...prayer. Just to be perfectly frank, my prayer life sucks. I don't mean that in an, I want to connect with my audience so i'll make myself look more "human" by saying that I struggle, kind of suck. I mean, my prayer life is virtually none existent, I can't remember the last time I truely had a heart-to-heart with God let alone a simple conversation with Him. When I say it sucks, i truely mean, it sucks. I think that the part that is even worse than that is the simple fact that I really don't care. I know I should. Of course people will, upon reading this, say but oh, your a pastor and your prayer life should be an example to everyone else, shouldn't it. Well, yeah, it should, but it's not. I can't be, because it's not there.
So, I have to preach on Luke 18:1-14 this Sunday as I fill in for my pastor as he fills in somewhere else. The passage is on the persistence of the widow and the contrast between a pharisee and a tax collectors prayers. It's a good passage, one that I need to hear, but if it's one that I need to hear so bad, why am I the one giving it.
As part of my prep, I wrote down a list of reasons as to why my prayer life is so bad. Here they are and i'll extrapolate a little bit on them as well.

Why is my prayer life so bad?

1. A lack of confidence in God's ability.
Honestly, I don't know why this is one of my reasons but it is. I know God is more than capable to do things beyond my wildest dreams. I have personally seen Him demonstrate Himself to me time and time again. Maybe it is because I am keenly aware of what God can do in my life when my prayer life is good, where it should be, but when it is not not doubt God and what He can do for me. I question whether or not God is truly able to do anything at all for me. Perhaps that is a lack of confidence in my own self, i dont know.

2. A disregard for God's word.
I think that is one that any person who struggles with prayer can agree on. As believers, we know that we are commanded to prayer. Thoroughout scripture, God instructs His followers to come to him in prayer on all occasions. When thigs are going great, go to him prayer. When things are horrible, go to him in prayer. When nothing is bad but then nothing is good and everything is just, eh, go to God in prayer. And yet despite all the commanding and all the petitioning and all the examples that scripture gives, we still disregard it and fail to pray. Is it for lack of confidence in God's word? I don't think so. Maybe it's just because of a lack of respect for it. Im not sure. There are plenty of other thing in God's word that I do because it says to, so why do I not pray??

3. A failure to understand who God is in my life.
As i typed that out I actually thought a better way of saying it whould be, a failure to understand who I am in my own life. Perhaps it is because I wrestle with my own identity sometimes. Well, ok, all the time. Im a confident person, prideful at times and ive never had self-esteem issues but I do wrestle with my "position" in life. There are days when I am completely comfortable with who I am and there are days when I have no clue. I spent 10 years working on a college degree so that I could go into full-time vocational ministry and to be honest, I received my diploma and just thought to myself, oh well...whatever. There really was no joy in it at all. I don't know why. I guess i'm still trying to figure out what i've been doing on this Earth for the past 27 years that makes God's think i'm worth keeping around. I'm glad that He has, and I do earnestly believe that He has a plan for me but sometimes I really do wrestle with who I am right now and who i'm supposed to be.

4. A desire to prove to myself that I don't need God.
I think that this truely is the crux of the situation. in this post-modern(er, whatever) culture we live in, it's all about me, me, me. Whatever makes me happy is what I am supposed to do. I should pay no mind to anyone else around me and I should focus all my time and energy on myslef and advancing whatever cause makes me happy today. All in all, is a very selfish, self-centered manner of thinking that prevails in society today...at least, thats what everyone says it is. But i think that like any created thing, we want to prove to our creator that we are autonomous beings. We do not need anything from Him that we cannot provide for ourselves. If I can't get it myself, then it is not worth getting. Ultimately, I don't need God.

Well, I suppose those are the most encouraging things that could ever come from the mouth of a pastor. Please, don't get me wrong, i'm not having a crisis of faith or something like that. I have no intention of turing my back on God. Thats just absurd. I owe my life to Him and that is precisely what He will receive. But I do wrestle with prayer. I kinda thought that if I type some of this stuff out it would help me in my sermon prep. I think it has.

Perhaps you can identify with this or a time that you felt this way? What did you do to get past it? Maybe you haven't and are still trying to. I dunno, but I would be curious to hear your thoughts. Thanks for listening to mine.