Easter at YC

Tonight I witnessed our wonderful first Easter service at Yosemite Church this evening. We are celebrating the sacrifice of Jesus and the traditional meaning of the Passover as the catalyst to the event of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Easter is always such a busy weekend here as the production director for YC. It’s interesting though and ironic that in the midst of so much happening and the fact that it is always like this year after year, I still somehow take on what I think is too much.

Maybe I do, yet God is faithful to sustain me. Not only me, but my amazing volunteers as well. They deal with such stress with last-minute changes and on-the-fly direction- and they do it with such grace.

So, I don’t know that I have a point: maybe it is that God is faithful to give me and my volunteers exactly what we can handle and nothing more and that is beautiful.

Grrrr…

Why do people have to be such idiots? Why do they have to frustrate me so? Ughhh…

So, I’m pulling out of my driveway this morning and I see this.

*^$%!!!!  Oh man was I mad. Yet, I have to say that it was nice to meet the nice Sheriff’s deputy who informed me about all of the gang and tagging crews in Merced. It just reminded me that they need Jesus just as much as anyone else. So, the fantasy of beating those responsible for my new fence decoration switched in my mind to the fantasy of leading them to know Jesus. Just sayin’!!

Iced Window Carnage

So, Cavin and I got up early this morning to go outside to look at the ice buildup after the freeze last night… Cav went from water puddle to water puddle with his modified ice pick (an old paint roller w/out the roller) hacking away at the 1/4 inch thick ice. It was great fun.

After about an hour I decided to go inside the house to check on Lizzie and Cami. I of course got distracted and didn’t think about checking on Cavin for about 20 minutes. I approached the back door and looked out the window. My eye was drawn down to the patio concrete just outside the door. I saw one of the windows I got in college- an antique solid wood, eight-paned latch window that could easily be 80 or more years old. They hang as decorative accents on our patio. I had taken them down a couple of days before because a storm threatened to blow them down.

What I saw boggled my mind… every pane of glass was gone except for a few broken shards still protruding from their grooved slots. I opened the door quickly and saw my son to the right, sitting on top of the second window and a pile of shattered glass. Three of the eight panes were gone from the second window and Cavin happily hacked away at the larger broken pieces.

I said, “stop!” and immediately picked him up and began to look him over, fearing that he may be seriously cut somewhere. Fortunately, he was wearing a heavy jacket zipped to the top and gloves on his hands. After I was sure he wasn’t hurt I stood up and looked at the carnage and those innocent eyes of his looking up at me with a mixed expression of questioning an fear.

I stood there swirling in my mind- was I upset about my broken windows? Was I overcome with relief that Cavin was not hurt? Why in the world would he smash all of the glass out of my precious antique windows? And then I looked at him and said, “ok, I can see how you got there…”

The ice in the buckets and canisters looked, sounded and broke just like the glass in those window panes. I wasn’t mad- in fact, I was cracking up inside. I still let him know it was wrong, but he wasn’t in trouble- I was just glad that he was ok.

As I walked into the house holding Cav I couldn’t help but think about all of the times God has felt the same way about the things that I have done and has reacted with nothing but love, grace, mercy and acceptance. What a beautiful father we have! I want to be more like that on a regular basis, I want it to be the rule, not the exception.

Space Available?

I have such a thirst for learning about what it is to worship God. I want to play music all the time. I can’t wait for the next time to rest my guitar on my lap or over my shoulder. The latest issue of Worship Leader Mag has on the cover, a saying that struck me- I’ve heard it before, but to hear it again at this moment in life is much more poignant. It says, “Worship at all times, when necessary use music.” I love that.
I want to cry with joy when I hear a beautiful expression of worship through song. Yet, there is so much space for worship outside of music.
I’m currently sitting in a national chain coffeehouse (I wish we had a decent local shop around here. I’d much rather support local- a bit off-point, I know) reading the classic, Exploring Worship by Bob Sorge and listening to Chris Quilala of Jesus Culture sing “Obsession” and I am overrun with the worship of my Lord. Tears well up as people stream through the doors to get their coffee.
How amazing is that? I can sit here in silence and my heart worships God Almighty while cappuccinos are being made.
Like prayer, I want to be in a constant state of worship- never ceasing.
So much of my week is filled with the technical aspects of how we make worship possible that I forget that it is right and good for me to stop and worship Him- the one who made it all possible, the one who is worthy of my worship.

When & where do you make the space to praise Him? Can you worship without ceasing?

Fear Stunts our Growth

I’m tired- feel like I go good sleep last night though, better than the last several nights. Cami is a bit fussy, that is to be expected for a newborn though, right?
While contemplating my sleepiness, I was thinking about helping to lead the Saturday night congregation into worship with YC2, our Saturday crew, this past week. I haven’t led worship in so long- the last time I both sang and played my guitar was over eight years ago. Yet, leading worship has been close to the surface of what I feel called to do. I have had to literally ignore it for these last many years. I have no good reason or excuse for this…other than fear.
I was sitting in a service several months ago and during the worship set I began to pray-

“Lord, am I doing all that you want me to be doing here at YC?”

There was no response, yet in the following weeks as I continued to ask that question of the Lord I felt my heart open to the possibility of leading worship and it got stronger and stronger.
I have an acoustic guitar that my wife bought me nine years ago as her wedding gift to me and it has set about each of our living spaces gathering dust for most of those years. After a Sunday morning worship set, I was chatting with one of our guitarists who also makes his own amps. As we conversed I heard a still-small voice say, “ask him for an amp.” So, I asked Jimmy if he had an amp that I could borrow or buy. To which he said, “no, I don’t. But I have one you can have.” He ended up giving me my first electric guitar as well.

Last Saturday was my second service helping to lead the congregation in worship and I was so incredibly, completely and fully filled with blessing and joy because of it. I praise God for His love! His love of our ability to use what He has given for His glory! Beautiful.

There are testimonies out there of God’s providence and love that I would love to hear. What is yours?

Strife and Striving

Lamentations is aptly named. The lamenting of a people. “My eyes are spent with weeping…” A city lying in ruins, the gates destroyed, the walls barely standing, few are left in the city and those who are scrounge for food- they faint in the streets overcome by hunger and weakness. There is no safety in the city of the kingdom of Judah. Women are raped openly, mourning is a way of life, murder is as common in the streets as it is in the countryside- so much so that gathering the ingredients for bread is a life and death risk.
Those in Israel were surrounded by foreign and enemy powers and they were the slaves of slaves, yet in chapter 3, the lamentable tone changes for 20 verses. These 20 verses speak of the faithfulness of God, the hope we can have in him, his goodness, the virtues of patiently waiting upon him silence and solitude, his compassion and love, his desire to discipline those he loves, his protection and power and finally a public call to repentance.
This should be our pattern and hopefully it is- screw up, receive discipline and God’s faithfulness through it and fully repent. It would be nice to take it a step further and say that the sin was never again revisited, but that is difficult to do at times.
I want to say that I am as faithful to God as he is to me at the end of my life. Though I know that is unattainable, I still desire to strive after it.

How about you?

Mug Wisdom

I cut my finger washing the dishes last night. It was my favorite mug, an authentic Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite coffee mug. I picked it up and the handle came right off and as the main cup fell it sliced my thumb pretty deeply. As the blood poured out of my finger and dripped into the sink all I could think about was my precious broken mug…

As I was laying on the couch clamping a vice-like grip around my thumb with a paper towel and breathing deeply to keep from passing out, I thought- Why was I so concerned about my mug when my finger was cut and bleeding everywhere? It’s a mug.

Our material possessions can be just one of so many things that can be so blinding to our true needs. As a follower of Christ, I struggle daily with the concept of dying to myself and seeking His will for my life above my own, especially when there are so many distractions around me.

What distractions/things get in the way of an authentic pursuit of Jesus in your life?

And The City Was Burning.

Lamentations- is so aptly named…

The lamenting of a people; “My eyes are spent with weeping…” A city lying in ruins, the gates destroyed, the walls barely standing, few are left in the city and those who are scrounge for food- they faint in the streets, overcome by hunger and weakness. There is no safety in the city of Jerusalem in the kingdom of Judah. Women are raped with the sun beating down on them. Mourning is a way of life. Murder is as common in the streets as it is in the hidden back roads of the countryside- so much so that the simple act of gathering ingredients for bread is a life-threatening activity. The people of Israel were surrounded by foreign and enemy powers and they were the slaves of slaves, yet in chapter 3, starting in verse 22, the lamentable tone chnges for twenty verses.

These 20 verses speak of the faithfulness of God, the hope we can have in Him, His goodness, the virtues of patiently waiting upon Him in silence and solitude, His compassion and love, His desire to discipline those He loves, his protection and power and finally a public call to repentance.

This should be our pattern and hopefully it is- screw up, receive discipline, recognize the worth of discipline and God’s faithfulness through it and fully repent. It would be nice to take it a step further ad say that the sin was never again revisited, but that is difficult to do at times.

Lord, I want to say that I was as faithful to you as you were to me at the end of my life. Though I know that is unattainable, I still desire to strive after it.