Colton Moments

We spent yesterday putting shingles on the new house. It is an exciting time. After framing in the rain all winter, we’re finally getting the place dry. There is a lot of promise in that.

I can go inside, wander through the kitchen and great room and then climb the stairs to the family room and look out the hole where the big bay window is going to go. As I look around at the unfinished walls, I can see the places where certain of Wende’s paintings will hang and where I’ll put bookshelves and where I’ll put a rack to hang the guitars. Out in the garage there’s a Jacuzzi tub that I bought for $20 waiting to make its way into the master bath. The potential and the hope are simply astounding. And they keep us moving.

Life needs hope. Hope that says there is something more, something better coming. That’s what we find throughout the pages of scripture. There’s hope for the future. It says there is something better coming – something that makes everything make sense and that keeps us pressing on.

Look at something from the Old Testament, from the Prophet Hosea:

Hos 6:3 “So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.”

Hosea spoke of the promise of restoration. Even though God’s chosen people had been rebellious and He had to discipline them, there was restoration coming. Just as certain as the spring rain.

And the Prophet’s call was to press on to know the Lord. Even though there were problems, even though God had judged them severely, the call was to press on and know Him. The prophet understood that there was hope for the future. He could see the places where God was going to hang the paintings. And Hosea wanted the people to see them as well.

I walked a friend through the house a little bit ago sharing all the stuff we were doing. I showed her where things were going to go and where I was going to hang the paintings. She began to share in the hope. She could see it coming together just as sure as the spring rain that was falling on the new shingles.

God is THAT good. Can you see where the paintings are going to go?

I wonder some about my discontent.

There is a certain discontent necessary for discipleship – or for any growth, for that matter. We should be discontent with our sinful habits, with our lack of compassion and concern for the people around us, for anything in our life that isn’t driven by godly, kingdom values. That sort of discontent is good. It causes us to grow. It is what causes us to overcome obstacles and reach the next level in our walk with God.

But that isn’t always what happens.

Instead we get discontent with our situations, our jobs, our families, our kids and our dog. We begin to whine that we don’t like this life and it might be better “if…”. And that sort of discontent is a lie from the pit of hell.

It’s not that I shouldn’t try to get a better job. I’m doing so right now. (For those of you reading this who don’t know, I have a day-job in addition to being pastor.) It’s not that it’s wrong for me to try to improve my home life or train my dog not to pee on the carpet. What is wrong is for me to be discontent with time and place and circumstances the God has orchestrated and ordained for me right now.

I’m broke most of the time. And I’m not wasting much on frivolous things. Duh. Our nation is in the middle of a recession and 103% of the people reading this are broke most of the time. But there is a real tendency for me to want to whine about it. And to be discontent. Because I don’t remember that it’s not all about me – there is much more going on here than Eric’s story.

Or I may want to be discontent about decisions that other people are making. Think: politics, social ills, pop culture, whatever. Worse yet, there are decisions made by people close to me that may affect me negatively (negative in my mind, at least) that I have no control over – not even one vote in umpteen million.

These are not my things to be discontent about. If they come from the hand of God or if they come from an earthly source over which I have no or limited influence, they are part of my situation and I am called simply to deal with them. As I tell the kids, “get a big straw and suck it up.”

Where I am not in control (just about any place outside myself) I am called to contentment. Consider the Apostle Paul: “Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” (Philippians 4:12) That ought to be our attitude as well.

And it can be. Grab your Bible and jump down to verse 13. If you’ve been in church much, you’ll recognize this verse.

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

The context is Paul being content in whatever circumstance he finds himself. And he found himself in all sorts of circumstances. Circumstances like shipwrecks and stoning and prison. And yet I whine about the price of milk and gasoline.

I need Jesus to strengthen me to do all things. All things like understand what to be discontent with and what stop whining about.

Amen.

I was reading this morning about facing fear. It is an interesting topic. I talk a good talk about not living in fear. I preach it. That’s what the Word of God says, after all.
And then I look at everything I have to do and the magnitude of it all and the very real chance that I might be setting myself up to crash and burn…and sometimes all that preaching goes out the window.
The good thing about grace though, is that I can pick things up again this morning and try again.
Saturday I was doing fine, even a bit gung-ho. Sunday morning was great. Then we had a business meeting here at the church and the financial report was a bit scary. And I began to feel the weight of it all and wonder how in the world we were going to make everything work. (And that on the heels of preaching that Jesus was STILL in the business of making things better…)
Monday I was just tired.
Tuesday (today) rolled around and I read some guy telling me how I need to live beyond the fear in order to do something real and important. I’m pretty certain he’s right.
Fortunately today has a certain promise to it; today is a new day and by God’s grace my weeny Monday can be replaced by something bigger and better today. Today I’ll look in the mirror and preach the sermon again to that guy and pray that whatever it is that brought on the fear yesterday would be overcome one more time today.
Because Jesus is STILL in the business of making things better.

(by the way, for those who are wondering the book was Don Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, check it out at http://donmilleris.com/ )

I just got home from walking with the kids (some of them) and our puppy (lots of him). We stopped and talked with some friends down the hill and then searched the middle school baseball fields for stray balls that the puppy could chase. By the time we got home it was dark.
While we were out the kids and I got to talking about baptism. (We are having a baptism here next Sunday and I preached about it yesterday.) We talked about growth and about the seriousness or lack thereof in our Christian walks. We came to some sort of a conclusion about how it was good that grace was there for those times when we weren’t all that serious (my translation). We didn’t want to get baptized everytime we messed something up. (Since we write our names on the backside of the wall in front of the baptistry, it would be really embarrassing to have your name up there 20 times!)
Grace is a cool thing. God keeps loving us through the serious times and the not-so-serious times, the good times and the not-so-good times, the I-really-am-a new-creation times and the not-so-new-looking times. He even keeps loving us when we’re sort of like the puppy and leave messes in the living room. For a guy prone to a short attention span and the ability to be not-so-new-looking sometimes, grace and mercy are really good news.
The whole thing got me thinking about this blog, too. I keep trying to get it going and faltering. But the opportunity is always here to start again and to do better. It’s there because my wife, in her normal grace-filled manner keeps the website current and keeps giving me opportunities (without nagging me!).
So here I go again. (and this time I know how to post stuff myself, without geek support, so I have fewer excuses).
God’s mercy is new every morning and every time I sit down to write. And every time I make a mess in the living room.

August 4, 2009

Ten thousand three hundred eighty feet. That’s the elevation of South Sister - named Charity if you happen to have the right map. Just a week and a half ago I was fortunate enough to climb that mountain. The climbing party represented three generations, four households and ranged in age from nine to 71. Everyone made it to the summit. Even me.
There is now a picture stored on my hard drive of all of us standing on the summit with a string of Cascade peaks rising up like islands on the blue-gray horizon behind us. It was a neat moment for me. I hadn’t been to the summit of that mountain in at least 20 years and that was the most recent of the several Cascade summits I have climbed.
And there I stood, with my father nearby and my kids gathered around.
I had been to those summits because my dad started backpacking with me when I was just 6. Standing on that summit we could see a lot of places we had been together over the years. And we told stories of the trips we had taken at other times, when I was old enough to go without him.
Now, 35 summers later my kids (and my nephews and an extra young man of my acquaintance) are learning this pastime that gave my dad and me so much in common - even at that time (20-some years ago) when I didn’t think we had much in common.
So many of dad’s values followed me as I moved my unused backpacking gear from house to house when the kids were little and I wasn‘t backpacking. It took a few years for me to realize it, of course, but it happened. Now I’m the age he was when we were making those trips together and I’m hoping that my values are getting packed away in the gear my kids are gathering up. They’re already starting to move out on their own and I’m praying that his values that followed me follow them as well.
Besides all that, the trip was fantastic and the view from 10,380 feet is fantastic.

July 7, 2009

Sunday afternoon was one of those idyllic times that makes you want to live in a small town. OK, I ALWAYS want to live in a small town, but that’s beside the point. The fact is Sunday was a lot of fun. It was the first installment of the Colton Farmers’ Market.
The market idea was cooked up by a local woman who I think had made a habit of attending such things in other communities. “Why not do it here?” she said. Now she’s overworked and underpaid, but it sure was a lot of fun.
There were a dozen or so vendors selling everything from beets to soap to oil paintings to outhouses. Everyone was having fun. Kent was selling hamburgers, Dennis was playing old Johnny Cash tunes and everyone was enjoying the festival atmosphere.
There were loads of people there who could all call each other by their first names – even if they hadn’t seen each other for a while. One vendor, a guy in his late 30’s, met up with a woman he hadn’t seen since he was in elementary school. They sat and talked like they were old friends.
I wandered through the booths sniffing hand-made soaps and beeswax candles and sampling fresh produce. I learned that some people I only sort-of knew had talents and interests that I would never have guessed.
It was the sort of afternoon that makes me a small-town boy. It was the sort of day that makes you enjoy people and makes you think the sky is just a bit bluer than on ordinary days. One day I should probably write a country song about it.
That’s the allure of small-town living – knowing everybody’s name, meeting folks who know how to make do with whatever they have, living a little simpler and a little slower-paced. Besides, who wouldn’t want to live in a town where you can buy a hand-built, cedar-sided outhouse?

I’ve been trying to convince Eric to start a blog for about two years, now. All kinds of people have been telling him that he should be blogging. Recently, however, the two of us got to spend some time with a very knowledgeable and helpful woman named Lee, who also encouraged Eric to start blogging. This time, I think he might have listened.

(Thank you, Lee!)

So, in order to facilitate this huge step into the cyberspace world, I have added this blog page onto our church website. All Eric will have to do is give me (or one of our children) the text for his latest blog entry and I will see that it gets uploaded. What could be simpler than that?

~Wende