Growth....

"Sometimes....there are stops on the road of our spiritual walks with God. There are stops to minister and to be ministered unto by others. There is rest or struggle. Sometimes we wait for direction, instruction, or provision. The goal of very stop on the way to Zion prepares us for the next step in the journey. In your spiritual walk is growth the goal of every stop?"

As someone who should be famous for his use of 'my time,' there could not have been any more convicting, or true, words for me to read this morning. As I finish up my time in Ken Ulmers book, it's interesting to see how God continues to shape our mindset, our heart and our worldview day by day. It's amazing how things that can seem so elementary and routine to some, can take years for others to get. It's crazy how some days, or some minutes, we can completely have something of God figured out, only to be totally lost the next.

It's kind of embarassing to admit, but until today, I always had a hard time answering the above question with a 'yes.'

In your spiritual walk is growth the goal of every stop?

I guess the problem with the question lies in the semantics of the question. Up until a few years ago I would have had no problem answering this question with a yes. When I did spiritual things it was only with the intent to grow. The breakdown, however, occurs when your view of faith changes as mine did a few years ago. When you want to move from your 'religion, faith or spiritualness' being something you 'do' at certain times and places to living you faith as a way of life. When you are truly trying to live faith as a way a way of life, however, this question becomes much MUCH harder to answer in the affirmative.

Rephrased under the premise that your faith is an integrated part of your way of life (ie faith isn't something you do, faith is something you live out in ALL you do and ALL you are), the question becomes: In your life is spiritual growth the goal of every stop?

Now if you know me at all, you know that question would send of massive sirens, warning bells, prison bars, whatever. Because I rather enjoy the 'my time' as I said earlier. I like the feeling of 'entitlement' that I can take this night off of ministry or spiritual growth. That my rest is 'my time' and that I couldn't possibly grow spiritually in a time of rest.

But that's what God calls us to do. Does that mean we should give up resting, going out for drinks, watching hours of TV or sports, or 'pleasure surfing' on the Internet? No, not at all. But it does mean that we, or specifically I, need to shift my worldview of that 'pleasure time' as much as I have shifted my worldview of other aspects of my life. In those times where we feel like we are 'entitled' to indulge our invidual nature, our need for rest, our need for disengagement, our need to blow off steam after a long week - whatever it may be; God is still with us. So if God is with us and if those thigns are part of our life, and if we are living our faith as a way of life - then logically God is with us and wanting to grow us somehow even through the medium of espn.com or a night on the town. It's how WE respond to Gods leading verses our own impulses, I believe, that ultimately decide whether or not we will respond with integrity (ie, is our faith truly integrated with our life or is it not for that point in time).

Random Musings...

Random thoughts from the UNC Undergrad Library as I deal with day 5 w/o the Dellie....

Why is it that humans are so completely enamored with the idea of waiting for 2 hours to be plummeted 70 feet in about 1 second while screaming there face off, only to get back in line and do it again?

I asked myself this more than once as Kim and I celebrated our anniversary (4 blissful years of matrimony this Thursday...) at Busch Gardens Europe this weekend. Yes, the Busch Gardens Europe that is actually in Williamsburg (home of all things Colonial, not exactly a hotbed of European culture), but ironically serves Barbeque in 'France.' But I digress. It's funny how things like amuesment parks and sporting events give you a snapshot of what is actually going on in the world's social fabric. Since people watching is one of my favorite things to do anyway (unlike my Dad who is just nosey, I casually observe culture around me - although Kim may disagree when she has to repeat her question to me multiple times), theme parks provide a great place to look at what you could be like, what you might be like, or even worse, what you actually are. Kim and I definitely learned a think or two about how NOT to parent children, why eating healthy and exercising is a GOOD thing for you to do, and why our future daughter will not be going out with boys until she's in college!

Direct Dave quote after 3rd consecutive trip on Apollo's Chariot: "I think I'm too smart to ride roller coasters."

Yeah, if you know me well you're not shocked that I would say something so random and concrete. Kim wasn't either, but just laughed at the notion. My point was, though, that while I love to ride the coasters, it really is hard for me to get a 'thrill' out of it - especially to the point of hurling blood curdling screams. I mean come on - we are on a ride that millions of other people have been on, that was tested and tested before it was ever comissioned, and is most definitely safer than driving a car. We are going to make a predictable sudden drop, flip around a couple times and come back safely to the station. What is so 'scary' about that?

As I thought about the comment over the course of the weekend and since coming back, though, I found another distinct theory as to the origin of my comment. And it all comes back to the single biggest issue in my (and probably many of yours) life - control. I try to 'control' the intended effect of the coaster by rationalizing why it's safe - thus losing any joy that the coaster may actually want to provide me. A roller coaster is supposed to scare you and thrill you because you are NOT in control. How disturbed is our mind, though, that we fail to experience the intended joyful (or shocking) affect of the coaster because we still want to exercise a measure of control over it?

Which leads me to what happens when we DON'T have control - fear.

Long story short. Kim and I purchased a nice expensive leather coach with some money she received from her company. Said coach is expected to arrive this week. Our little furry friends Sebastian and Emma have already reeked havoc on our nice new linen chairs and did a number on our old sofa. So today I dropped them off to have their 10 front claws surgically removed.

Talk about not being in control. As I left our cats this morning I realized 2 important things:

1. I actually do have a soul and emotions despite what Dusty, Kim and others seem to think sometimes. I honestly had a deep sense of sadness as I knew that our cats would be surgically altered and that there are (as w/any surgery) risks and pain involved. Man I am honestly going to have a hard time being a parent one day!
2. The root of a lot of that emotion, unfortunately, lies in control. Yes I was sad that our cats would be put under the knife - yes I felt the honest human emotion around that. But come on, they are cats. I realized as I got in my car that a large reason I felt sad was that I couldn't control the situation. The doc was going to do what he was going to do, and I couldn't do anything about it.

I wonder how many of us have these control issues, and how we deal with them? Probably it's something that we all deal with to a degree, we just deal with it differently. I've seen folks who are controlling by being super dogmatic, structured and disciplined - it's there life and they're going to live it this way. Come along for the ride if you want. I've seen others fall prey to control by 'not controlling.' Afterall isn't uncontrol actually a way to control your situation by acting like you are not controlled by anything while in fact you are still in control (confusing I know, but think about it).

Well that's plenty for today. We'll revisit this topic later. Now if I could just control these dang torrential downpours that we keep having, I'd be a whole lot happier (and drier)........

As Kim and I were standing in line

mother....

When dealing with my laptop recently,I have certainly been tempted to utter what I can only assume many of you were led to believe by the subject. But the point of this note is not emotion attached to it, but the physical object itself - the motherboard. Therefore my beautiful handy laptop (something that has got to rank in the top 10 of my primary needs in life) has been packaged up and sent to Dell for testing

Therefore posting has been, and maybe, scarce over the next two weeks. But if you have been following this blog - don't leave me as I will try to post as I can.

Awareness

So, the last 2 days were spent watching waay too much 24 (try all of season 3). If you haven't seen it, 24 is one of the most unbelievable (both in the "I can't actually believe this would happen to one group of people in on 24 hour span" and the "I cannot believe some of the ridiculously incredible and diabolical things that Jack Bauer and his gang get into" meanings of the word) shows on television today. For 5 seasons I have held off, mostly because GI meets on Mondays and it just doesn't fit into the schedule. But this summer I finally decided I would join the 24 revolution and use the time between June and January to get caught up before season 6. Of course little did I know that I would watch season's 1 & 2 in the span of about 72 hours and then season 3 in the span of about 48 hours a month later (more on the idea of obsessions later :))

As I emerged from my 24-haze to the daylight of the real world, however, I have realized how much shows like that can teach you if you are looking for teaching moments. Because every episode of 24 is one hour within the scope of a full 24-hour day to be played out over the course of the season you can see how much life plays off itself. You see how a small decision made at 7:10 am can totally affect a larger situation that occurs at 3:15 pm. You see, by watching 24, how magnified our seemingly mundane decisions can be in life - if we take the time to fully process them.

Take yesterday as a prime example for this - hence the inspiration for my post. I left my Thursday Bible study at 2:00 pm on campus and was forced with a decision of what to do. I had some good study and work to get done before my 6:30 dinner date w/the Abrahamsons and the Yamauchis. I was tired. I was feeling that urge to be 'lazy.' I was feeling a dose of apathy. Then came the spiritual battle. My mind thought of all these 'other things' I could be doing - surfing the internet, checking up on the Braves, putting shelves up in the house - things that in of themselves were not bad, but did not meet the immediate pressing need to get work done before 6. So I'm literally sitting in my car driving around having an internal discussion with myself that went something like this -

"If I go home I'm doomed. I'll either watch tv, surf the net or do some house chores that can wait. Damnit, I need to get out of the mode of retreating to home in these moments and fighting through them. I'll go to Barnes & Noble. Great. But now I'm quasi-deflated about my decisions, so I'll be tempted to buy a vanilla latte (a 'comfort food' which currently doesn't fit with my budget or diet goals) and read other books (and probably buy more that I don't need). So what the heck should I do? Come on Dave, fight it, fight it, do whats right here....."

So I am literally getting frustrated as hell at this point. And thus is the kind of thing that happens to me on days like Thursday, or during the school year - days like Monday or Friday afternoon, when I don't have appointments tieing me one place.

I felt like Jack Bauer standing looking up with camera angle spinning around him, trying to figure out what to do next (except without the weight of national security and crazy terrorists hanging over my head). This time, though, I made some critical decisons:

1. I am always going to have days like that if I always retreat to the comfortable.
2. Godliness does not involve retreat (as in surrender) into the world.
3. I need to remember to always follow the '2 masters':

• My master schedule that I create each week that lays out the priority items in my work and when they need to get done by. It's created with flexibility in mind, but in times of crisis like this I should always do what the schedule says.
• Above all else, God is my heavenly master. He has the divine plan for my life and desires for me to walk in that. Is what I'm about to do at reflective of a plan that God could have for my life.

So I went to Barnes & Noble with a fortified resolve, and despite the demons within me yelling at me to check out the new books, read a magazine, look at the music or take a nap, focused for the next several hours on the task at hand.

Awareness, when we take time to be aware, can be a really frustrating thing. I wanted to kick scream cuss, and give up all at the same time. But awareness, when addressed in the context of where God is moving us is a beautiful thing.

Take some time in the next week to truly try to be more self aware in a situation than you normally are. Look at how the actions of 8:10 am affect the situation at 3:15 pm - and maybe we'll all have a greater idea of what the heck God is up to in our lives.

Fear

More Ken Ulmer. Today's chapter talked about fear, or specifically Godly fear, and how we neglect to walk in fear in our relationship with God. Before I delve into greater detail - some highlights from the chapter. They will most likely be random and somewhat disconnected to you, so if they are, I guess you'll just have to read the book!

"Like any good parent, the Father establishes his sufficiency by responding to our needs. However, sufficiency alone is inadequate to ensure the safe, healthy development of His offspring. If we are driven soley by our needs, then Satan can and will provide any number of alternate sources to meet those needs, every one of them guaranteed to move us further away from God."

Wow, that one is fairly convicting. How easy is it for us, for me, to be driven by my needs, not by my need for God? Without having a healthy fear of God, though, how can we ever truly be driven soley by our need for God when our worldy needs are seemingly so much more appealing?

"When a child misbehaves, how do you punish that child? ...you want the pain of the punishment to correct the misbehavior.... A good parent disciplines his or her child. Will God discipline us? Yes. Will it hurt? Sometimes. But consider the alternative put forth in Hebrews 12:8.... If you're acting up and God's not disciplining you, you'd better check to see if you're His child, because parents only discipline their own children. As believers, we don't live in fear of God's judgement. But we should be very concerned with the correcting rod of His discipline."

A well-put and convicting look at God's 'wrath' or his judgement, I think. I've long thought about this idea of living in fear of God and how we do that whilst living a "full life" as Jesus talks about. I think, though, that the breakdown occurs when we live 'in fear of God's judgement' as Ulmer said. THIS is where I think so many Christ followers today find themselves living what I call the Gospel of Suck. You know these folks, life is always tough and they are driven by their guilt. If we live a life that is concerned w/the correcting rod, however, then I think we begin to approach situations by asking questions like - 'What am I doing to God by doing this?' or 'What does this say about what I think about God?'

And finally - "Everything that God wants you to be starts with your fearing Him.....Telling God that He's wonderful and powerful is not fearing Him. To consider your conduct in light of how wonderful and powerful He is - now, that's fearing Him."

I think that hits the mark right there for me. Ever sit around and think about your life and wonder why you're the same person in many respects that you were 5, 10, 15 years ago? Why you can't 'get over' some of the lifestyle issues, personality quirks, addictions or obessions that you've been trying to for years? I do. A lot. Maybe it's because God wants ME to be something better, someone more Godly, but he can't let me be those things until I conduct my life in those specific ares in light how who He is.
I think this gets right to the heart of the idea that we can't live individual faith lives that we have to go deeper, with God, with others, and with ourselves. We have to conduct our lives in response to what God has done for us and what he wants to do in us - not have the 'get my house in order first' mentality that is SO easy to adopt.

Religiosity....

This is a term that bites at me. Especially in the South. "Religion" assumes you are 'expected' to do certain things: go to church; read the Bible; pray; be a great spuse; ask for a blessing before a meal......

Sure we do those things, but should we be bound by those things? Do those very things define who we are as a person....or more importantly as a person of God?

As I learn more and more about a) my own self and my own faith, and b) about the culture of the south (and to an extent the rural midwest where I was raised) these are the questions I continue to ask myself and those around me.

As we strive to become men and women who truly and throughly believe that Jesus came so that we "may have life and have it to the full," (John 10:10) I belive it's important that we first answer this question of religiousity.

I'm reading a great book currently that has served as the inspiration behind the blog title, et al. In "Spiritually Fit to Run the Race," Bishop Ken Ulmer describes lays out what Godly living looks like. He describes it in a way that I hadn't quite thought of before.

I have thought for quite some time that the phrases 'he's religious' or 'she's spiritual' just don't cut it for me anymore. Because everyone - it seems in the South especially - is 'religious' and many people call themselves 'spiritual.'

But how many of us are truly Godly? And what does Godliness look like in our lives?

Check back for more as I learn more.

First Post...

Ok, I'll join the revolution. Not so much just for you, but also for myself. See, I have always been a 'journalist'- my conecntration, hobby and employment in high school and college - but seem to have left that part of me behind.

So this is for ME, but if you get something out of it - great, because you know what? Somewhere, deep down inside, whether you admit it or not, you are 'not so religious' afterall......

Religiosity....

My first true attempt to share what's going on in my head. This is mainly for me, but hey if it interests you - please check back daily!