Busy, Busy, Busy

I haven't blogged much lately because life is extremely busy right now.

This is not a bad busyness, but it certainly requires quite a bit of time. Last weekend our younger daughter graduated from high school. In a couple of weeks our older daughter gets married. We are currently trying to both get the house ready for guests and plan the last details of the wedding ceremony and reception.

On top of all this my job at JCB usually has me working at least fifty hours per week. Added to that is my increasing running schedule; I run almost every day after work. This is a choice, but again it takes time.

My wife Alice and I are what you could call "joyful but busy." If we can just make it through the wedding with no major complications everything should be fine.

Out of Time

For about the past year and a half I have been working over sixty hours per week. Because of this schedule, I'm chronically tired/exhausted. I realized recently that I don't do some of the things I used to enjoy doing such as exercising and reading. On top of that I'm not really involved in church life except on Sundays. Most concerning to me is my lack of time for my family. Because of all this I've got to do a better job of prioritizing how I spend the little free time I have. I cannot any longer justify blogging very frequently. Therefore, my blog post frequency, which has already been dropping, will continue to do so. Although I enjoy it, I just can't spend time on it any longer. You'll see posts from time to time, but not very often. If I do manage to find a different job with fewer hours I'll probably return to regular blogging. Now back to spending time with family.

Priesthood and Intimacy

Being part of God's priesthood is an undeserved gift. This gift demands responsibility for action on our part. Also required are self-sacrifice/service and reciprocity.

As a final thought on this topic for a while, let me include intimacy as critical for priestly living. I'm referring to both intimacy with God and intimacy with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Of primary importance is our own relationship with God. By definition, priests to God are close to God. Priests offer daily sacrifices of themselves to their Creator and Savior as part of communing with him. God desires and demands intimacy with his children.

Secondary, but still critical, are our relationships with other believers. We show our love for God through how we interact with other Christians. As we look in the bible, we see an expectation that we, as priests, will have close relationships with other priests. There is much more scriptural support for having close relationships with other believers than non-believers. Of course we ought to be friends with both groups, but Christians are to be the priority.

Intimacy requires time. This may be the toughest part. In our ultra-busy society, we often don't have much time to spend with Christian friends. I know I suffer from this with having to work about 60 hours per week. Regardless of our situation, we must do the best we can.

I'm sure there are some believers who are intimate with God who have very few if any Christian friends. This could occur overseas or here in the USA. The general pattern, however, for Christians seems to be that God wants us to live out our intimacy with him by being intimate with Christian brothers and sisters.

As we think about being priests, let's not ignore intimacy.

No Time to Blog

I've written about this before so I won't belabor the point. I simply don't have much time to blog anymore. While I still enjoy both the writing and the ensuing comments/conversations, there just isn't time in the day for much of it. I'm still working about 65 hours per week.

My hope is that my posts will be more selective and thus more beneficial for everyone involved. We can hope.

No Time for Organic Church

Life is terribly ironic sometimes.

Over the past couple of years, God has graciously opened my eyes to his plan for a vibrant yet simple church. Of course, this is just the church we see in scripture. It is a church that is a united family. It is a body and a bride. It is organic.

This is the type of church life that I deeply desire to be a part of. I know many other Christians have a similar desire (probably you as well if you bother to read this blog). While some fellow believers struggle to find others who want this sort of church life, God has blessed Alice and me with wonderful friends who hold to similar beliefs about the church.

The irony is that I have no time for organic church. When I resigned from the professional pastorate, I prayed that God would provide me with a regular job. He graciously did that here in Savannah at JCB. However, for the past few months I've been working about 65 hours per week. The job is in a warehouse and requires me to be on my feet for most of the day. Because of this, I'm tired most of the time. I don't mean this to be a complaint; rather, these are the reasons that I have little time for church life.

Many Christians cannot find organic fellowship. I've got the friends, but don't have the time.

Because of this, our Sunday gatherings are extremely special to me. This is about the only time I get to see my friends. This is not by choice. It is a consequence of schedule. When we get together on Sundays, I find the time to be a wonderful, refreshing time of fellowship. I wish this could happen throughout the week, but right now that is not a possibility.

For most of the week I look forward to Sunday. Of course, this week I will probably have to work on Sunday so I may not be able to make it to fellowship. That's going to hurt.

You may be in some sort of life situation that is keeping you from what you hope for as far as church is concerned. I want to encourage you. God's grace is immense. He knows our hearts. He will also provide for fellowship in ways we don't often expect or understand. However, as I'm learning, God's timing is often far different from ours.

As I long for more time with my church family, God gives himself to me all the time no matter what the situation. I believe God at times restricts our church involvement so that we are forced to lean more fully on him. This is our current situation.

Organic church life will have to wait. For now, Sundays will have to be emphasized more than I would like.

Christ is sufficient. He will carry us through this time.

Time is Precious

I'm currently working more than I ever have before. Eleven to twelve hour shifts have become the norm. When I'm not at work, I'm tired. These are not complaints; I'm thrilled to have work to do. However, this situation has reminded me how precious time is.

My blogging frequency has dropped quite a bit over the past month or so. The reason is that I only have a few hours in the evening at home to do anything. My priority has to be my family.  Since I see them less than I would like, that time has become increasingly precious.

I do have some time at work to think about Christ and his church. As I have been doing this lately, the beautiful simplicity of it all has become more and more apparent to me. As his followers, we have the incredible privilege of living in joyful unity in Christ before the eyes of a lost world.

40

Today I turn 40 years old. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to feel about this. Right now it doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

The older I get the more majestic and faithful I see that God is. He continues to prove His perfections to me everyday. In every aspect of life, God is constant. He is there. He is providential. He is supreme.

I am currently unemployed. Even though it can be difficult to see it at times, even my unemployment is a gift from God. It makes me depend upon Him more now than I normally do. It is drawing me closer to Christ, and in this I rejoice. Part of me hopes God soon provides me with a job and part of me hopes this lasts a while longer.

I suppose I have to come to grips with some facts about getting older. For one, my dreams of professional athletics appear to finally be finished. Unless I desire to be a quarterback who doesn't know when to retire, I've got to sacrifice this fantasy. Additionally, I have to face the fact that my children are getting older. Our eldest now works here. Our youngest is no longer elementary age. On the plus side: I haven't had to change a diaper in quite some time.

God continues to show me new things in life. Is He still doing this with you? For me, over the last few years God has opened up my eyes to a much broader, deeper picture of what He wants His church to be. I'm grateful to Jesus for this and look forward to living it out.

Despite turning 40, I don't feel old at all. In fact, I'm looking forward to spending the next few days with my son and some other Boy Scouts on a campout somewhere in South Carolina. I'm looking forward to enjoying God through being with other Christians in His creation.

I won't be blogging over the next few days. Instead, I'm going to be having fun.

Happily Ignorant about T.V.

I frequently hear people passionately discussing what is happening on the latest T.V. shows. They talk about the characters, the plot lines, and the relationships. They also try to figure out how they can fit the new shows into their already busy schedules.

I am thrilled to say that I am purposely completely ignorant about what is happening on T.V. Ever since we made the decision last spring to rid ourselves of T.V., we have felt freed from its clutches. We no longer find ourselves feeling like slaves to the scheduling folks at the networks.

Let me be clear: we do own a T.V. However, we have no cable subscription and don't even try to pick anything up through any sort of antennae (can you still even do that?). Instead, we have a number of movies and documentaries that we watch occasionally. We also check out films from the local library. This allows Alice and me to screen everything our kids watch. We no longer find ourselves feverishly diving for the remote control when something unexpected and inappropriate comes on the T.V.

As for the news, we check it out several times per day on the internet. So far we haven't missed out on anything substantial.

There is a saying that is sometimes true: "Ignorance is bliss." That's how we feel.

An additional bonus to all this is that we have more time to read and spend together as a family.

I strongly encourage you to get rid of you T.V. subscription. It may hurt a bit at first as you experience withdrawal, but you will never regret it.