So the presentations started. I am usually a team player and people know this about me. Scott was not a team player this morning and probably shocked my seminary friend. My friend stood in front of ten people to present and she asked if she could put me on the spot. She asked me a question that I immediately dodged, “How are you feeling this morning?”

As I listened to people share I began typing out the lousiness. Here is what came out of me:

We have lost our dominion. We are broken because we rebelled. There is no way we can ever reclaim our dominion or our identity. Look at Israel. Look at Europe. Look at Asia. Look at South America. Look at North America. We are lost. We are in a bad scene. Our lives are a mess. Nothing is ever enough. We are screwed. We sinned and blew it. No way to ever return. Nothing is ever enough. We do not honor our deep link with Adonai. We are shrouded in doubt. Without atonement, we will continue to spiral in sin. We are radioactive vessels. We have lost our connection with Adonai. We are weighed down by depression, recession, greed, pain even though we have brilliant scientists, brilliant doctors, all the technology, all the weapons and yet we still we will not make it. We want it our way. We are not connecting action with consequence. Is Adonai departing from us? Are we doomed for captivity? Are Adonai’s people lost? Where is the remnant? Who is the remnant?

May we repent. May our hard hearts be broken and may we choose to live out our free will well. We are in trouble. We are going to be punished. Yet Adonai will bring justice. If I grieve, if people grieve, think about how much Adonai weeps.

What change?

Whose change?

Why change?

For whom will change affect?

Change

To what degree?

What is the cost of the change?

Who will the cost of the change affect?

Change

Have you and I considered the depth and width of change?

Will the change end up being the change that will change everything that we value?

Will the change discimate the preservation of what needs not to be changed?

Has our need for change overshadowed what matters most?

Change

A needed change? Let’s us see where it goes.

(Written on the night of the election day. Shortly before McCain announced his withrdraw. These are the thoughts that were rolling around my head a week before election day.)

Why wait? Why does it feel that at times waiting is all consuming?  Is this feeling a western-mind- set thing? Doubtful. I feel many days I am just…waiting. Waiting. I would be lying if I would tell you that I love to wait or that I enjoy waiting. Overall, I do well with waiting. I am content with waiting. Now do I get frustrated with waiting? Yes. I am frustrated.

The Bible speaks (without citing scripture) about waiting. Waiting with patience, expectation, eagerness, and with hope. With a level of confidence I can tell you that these qualities are expressed in and through me because of the Holy Spirit.  If you have a chat with me, you will learn this to be true.

So what the heck is my point. I don’t know if I have one or if I writing to state a point? Sounds pointless huh? Maybe. Maybe I am expressing being a male. Males generally struggle through process and would much have the product. Women are so much inclined to enjoy the process. I, being male recognize and identify with the struggle of enjoying the process. Maybe I am encouraging myself. Maybe encouraging you the reader. Maybe I am helping myself to re-evaluate why or why not waiting is a wothy quality? Perhaps with the re-evaluation I will be shown what I am waiting for and whether or not I should be waiting and with what kind of attitude I should be waiting?

Regardless…you will be finding me…waiting.

…waiting…waiting.

 ( This image is interestingly ( a search was done for a image of “waiting”) taken from a website featuring artists from Baltimore. Garden Church…check them out. Here is the web address. http://www.creativequarantine.com/baltimorequarantine.htm )

My final year at Evangelical Theological Seminary has begun. Class is back in session. Assignments explained. Expectations set. Introductions finished. And I…well…am trying to get my head, mind, and hands working together. This semester I have four classes two of which are marriage and family counseling courses. I am intrigued to learn from my professors and from the students. I feel like a stranger in this classes, simply because I am traveling with students who all know each other from previous classes. Awkwardly, this is exactly why I am intrigued. New faces, with new perspectives, and new outlooks.

As the semester continues to unfold, I hope that I will climb back in the saddle because right now that saddle is uncomfortable.

Bill has movie coming out in October. It is his Anti-Religion Movie. I plan to check it.

As I continue to listen to Bill I wonder: “Does Bill Maher help to create unity or division?” What do you think?

I am not a parent. I am not rising children. Hopefully, one day, in the not so distant future this will change. I hope to have children so while I may not have any children now I believe as a future parent I have permission to sound off.

Parents please wake up! I try not to do this, but I do pay attention to kids especially in large public settings and what I notice does not make me happy. I can understand that children do not need to be attached to their parent’s hips, but when the kids are 10 or 15 feet away from their parents in a shopping center or the kids are wandering around by themselves while their parents are 4 aisles away strikes me as irresponsible and unacceptable.

I may sing a different tune when I have my own kids, but I doubt it. I do understand that our eyes cannot be on our kids all the time at that even if we do keep our kids close accidents and tragedy may still happen.

What is it? Why is this happening? This trend seems to becoming more severe. Why does it seem to me that parents allow their kids to roam see far from them? Am I over-reacting? If I need to lighten up, please tell me. Parents! What is the deal?

Our church community is in the middle of our VBS week. The week is enjoyable and smooth. Our attendance is a bit under 20 each night. A lot of effort went into putting this week together. I only realized this last evening. While we all are having fun learning about God and hanging out, I am looking forward to this week’s completion. My vacation is on the horizon and I am stoked.

During the first half of the summer I endured Biblical Hebrew. Unless there is a miracle, I will end up failing the course. I studied, but retained very little. I have finished my final and will mail it off on Friday. For the most part, I enjoy the language. I continue to gain a deeper appreciation for second language speakers and translators of all languages. While earning a great grade would make me happy, having this deep appreciation is the real joy.

I received some health related news that upset me briefly, but I am not over it. My blood test shown that I have high cholesterol. This is common. So my eating habits will change and I will begin more disciplined about what goes in my mouth. Another health related topic. I went for an x-ray today. For the last two weeks, I have the sensation of numbness that runs down the back of my right arm all the way to my pinkie finger. My neck is muscles are real tight as well. My results should be back within a few days. I am curious to know what they reveal.

I think this post is a bit cryptic, but then again so am I.

What may surprise some of my close friends is what I share in this post. My friends will be surprised because I did not share this battle with them. My friends, for this disregard I apologize.

About two months ago I re-opened a door to a past addiction and during those two months the choice to surrender to those impulses happened frequently. I did put a good fight. I protected my mind…for a time.

Through this season of backsliding I learned a hard humiliating truth: “I am not as free as I thought.” (Do not misread me. I am not encouraging anyone to re-open a door to their past addictions to test your freedom from it. That is just double dumb.) For some reason I had this false impression that I had left the dungeon and that all the chains had fallen off. Truth be told I am still shackled to a long chain. I guess my dungeon has levels. But, through the love, grace, love (already mentioned that…I’ll keep it anyway), and guidance of Jesus Christ this chain will be broken. I will walk out holding the hand of the Savior and keep on walking.

I am learning that digging to the root of the emotional pain is absolutely necessary for total freedom and that for total freedom to wash over you life, the root must be pulled out and burned. Let me comfort those who might be concerned for my salvation. I am not speaking of receieving Christ as Savior, rather I am speaking of living in the complete reality of total freedom from bondage found in Christ alone.

During those two months I could not listen to the reason why this door continues to be a curiousity. The moment of clarity happened when I permitted Jesus to take me to the source of the pain. I get sense that I ignored the groanings of the Holy Spirit because I was listening to another voice. The voice that said, “You are past this. You have dealt with this. No need to go back there.” This is not the voice of the Spirit, but the voice of the enemy. I was lied too.

As I laid on the sofa two nights ago bawling and shrieking on the inside my insides swelled surprisingly with determination. Through tears I uttered, “Okay Lord. Let’s do this together because alone I will not make it. Together we will.”

I am renewed and ready to continue the journey of healing with determination. While there will be emotional pain, I will be comforted that I am not alone.

¹Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. ²Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.⁵One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”