Wanting More

So Monday was my son’s third birthday. I’ve never seen birthday celebrations like Liam got this week. Sunday was a birthday party with 3 of his grandparents. Monday was  a little party with his other grandparent. Wednesday was a blow out bash with a bunch of his little friends. Needless to say this morning Liam was asking about his party and for cake.  We’re trying to help him understand that his birthday has now past.

I had a blast watching all of the little kids yesterday but especially Liam. I love how free he is. He’s just partying and doesn’t have a care in the world. He could care less about what any of us think about how he looks. He doesn’t care if he “looks stupid”. Here’s a couple of picture of him blowing out his birthday candles and how excited he got when everyone was cheering and clapping. (Not sure if they’ll show up in RSS readers or not. Might have to click to the website)

Man I wish I was that free. Especially in my walk with and worship of God. I wish that when I was a worship leader I felt like I had the freedom to just celebrate God like that. Totally free to pour my all into it without a care of anything else. No worries of what others thought. Just giving into the moment between God and I.

Hi All

Sorry for the lack of a Resistance Fighters post yesterday. It was my little guys 3rd birthday on Monday and between celebrating on Sunday and Monday (one more party still to come on Wednesday) I’m a little behind on the blogging.  

So I was walking home this morning from an appointment (yes I chose to walk) and just letting my thoughts run a little. Reflecting on where life is at right now. The big thing that is missing for me right now is some ministry/outreach.  When I was working for a church I was constantly going on about needing to be more outwardly focused and reaching out to the community.  Right now I’m not really putting that in to practice in my own life. We still have no idea what we are going to do about church on a long term basis but this issue goes beyond that. 

I am the only believer in my family and one of only a handful of believers among all the people I grew up with.  Despite this I don’t feel like I’m spiritually investing in any ones life. I’m not connecting with people I should be and I’m not in the community the way I feel believers should be. I am building into the lives of my students and have had a number of fantastic conversations with some recently. I have a few who really feel comfortable sharing stuff with me when they’re having a hard time but I still feel like there’s more.  

Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. Maybe I’m missing some good that I am doing.  I am thrilled with the direction my life is taking right now but I do still feel like there is something missing.  I’m not positive what it is but I’m looking forward to finding out what  it is and what God is going to do with it.  

As I’ve been writing this post the thought that started going through my mind is that the key for me is to be patient. I have a tendency to try and force things sometimes when I feel like I’m missing something. I need to remember that the plan for this time was transition and healing.  Why would I want to force or rush that? I want to come out of this time energized and refreshed and prepared for whatever ministry God has planned for me.  

Thanks for reading my ramblings. This wasn’t my intent but it was very therapeutic.

It really doesn’t take much to make someone smile and perhaps change their day.  (RSS subscribers may need to click to the site to see the video).

So I was spending some time practicing and a thought occurred to me. (“Wow Charlie, you developed a thought.” Pretty surprising I know).

We as Christians have serious troubles with listening. This applies to many different contexts but I’m referring specifically to listening to God. 

We spend lots of time doing Christian activities (that is a good thing) and hopefully lots of time in God’s word and prayer. We strive to find God and meet with Him. We try to follow where he is leading because we know that is what He wants and is best for us. 

But how good are we at listening?

Let me explain why this thought came to my mind.  This might seem quite odd to some of you but I’ll do my best to explain. Quite often when someone is trying to learn an instrument they learn “how” to play that instrument. Let’s take the piano as an example. They have an understanding of how it’s suppose to sound and how to make it sound that way. So practice time is spent trying to manipulate the piano to sound the way it’s suppose to. 

Here’s the odd part that most people don’t realize. When most people are playing an instrument they don’t actually listen or hear what they are playing. You may be thinking  ”that sounds funny, how do they not hear it?”. When playing most people can hear when they hit a wrong note or make a big mistake but don’t hear the sound of the instrument and or the musc they are playing. A popular (and excellent) exercise that many people do is to record their playing to hear it back and listen to how it sounded.  That is a great exercise but did you catch that? We have to record ourselves to hear how we sound! Very few people learn how to listen to their instrument as they are playing. They don’t hear the flow and the movement, the expression, the subtle harmonies or how the sound is filling the room. They are too busy learning how to manipulate their instrument instead of hearing what they sound like and adapting to it. Best example I can give is someone absolutely reefing on their instrument.  It’s loud but it sounds like garbage. Every instrument has a volume where it “sings” and we need to learn to listen for that.

In the example of classical pianists that’s what separates a good player from a great one. With the great ones you don’t just hear a lot of notes played really fast, you hear harmonies and textures and emotion. Yes they are playing fast and fancy but it’s about so much more than the notes. 

When I look at people of faith whom I admire and have been great examples to me they have that listening quality. Yes they do lots of things but it’s about so much more than those things and it’s not done with the intent to (for lack of a better word) manipulate  God. They are in a relationship with Him and when they spend time with God it is a two way street. They are listening to and in tune with God.  They aren’t doing it just to get everything right, they are doing so they can hear God, see how He meets with them and fills the spaces in their lives.

Hi Everyone.

Found this really cool video on YouTube that I thought I’d share. Just an awesome example of thinking outside the box creativity. RSS readers will need to click to the site.