In Beginning...

*This was the first post I tried to make a couple of weeks ago. Since most of you are just finding out about this I figured it didn’t matter…more updates will come soon.

I’m sitting at my kitchen table…it’s late. People say nothing good happens after midnight…or has it moved to 1 o’clock…who knows. I’m not sleeping tonight. No worries, this is nothing new. I just finished a can of Grapico and in my peripheral I can see a Latrodectus mactans as it is trying to fight its way out of a Jones Soda bottle I used for capturing it last night.

But let me digress. The evening began with critiquing Anna’s med school essay over at Justin and Walter’s, or what little was left to do after her brother’s editing. For our measly efforts, she treated Justin and me to delicious burgers she had picked up from Little Willie’s Meat Market & BBQ.

Walter and I watched Mississippi State play LSU tonight…I mean get beat 45-0. All I can say is Henig and the MSU offensive coordinator have got a lot of adjusting to do…and LSU better get ready for Alabama. If Bama doesn’t knock them off their #2 pedestal on Oct. 27th, Virginia Tech or one of the SEC teams will.

Anyhow, neither of us watched the second half. Walter left the room and I began prepping the blog for birth. Justin had left and come back by the end of the game and we dueled in Wii Tennis for several matches, and then played one game of Wii Madden.

GOD HAD ME WANDER…

Today (yesterday technically) I quit my job working with Brilla Soccer Ministries. The final newsletter I send will be today. I still have to write it before I leave my house to make my last official Brilla trek to Clinton down the Natchez Trace.

And this is where you’ve found me…right in the middle of the intersection of life.

There is an obscure verse in Genesis where Abraham acknowledges, “when God had me wander.” I came across this verse as I prepared to teach my college students this past Wednesday evening. I identified with it.

At some point over the last six years I began to realize that I too was on a journey…I was wandering, but not as you and I normally think of it. Like others, I assumed that if God was calling me to ministry that my focus should be on a physical destination and how quickly I could get there. And too often we miss the point.

May I alliterate? This wandering is not pointless and procrastinating. It is a perplexing plan for his people, profound in purpose, a pondering of promise in pursuit of Perfection; a path of pain and pleasure, peace and punishment, power and praise, prison and protection, prayer and purification, prosperity and pruning, poverty and position, persecution and perseverance. See, God told Abraham to “go to the land I will show you.” Clear as mud right? But see, it was clarity enough for him.

IT IS CLEAR ENOUGH! Go back and study closely God’s relationship to His people. From the beginning God intended for them to be packed and ready to follow Him wherever He led until they reached their final destination. Even Christ called the people to “follow” saying he had “no place to lay his head.” WE ARE NOT THERE YET!

Jim, when I was experiencing God’s call to ministry you gave me a ton of assignments. I only completed one of the many you ever gave, and that was reading In His Steps. But one time you asked me to identify people of faith whose calling I related with…well Abraham is one, and I just figured out why.

THE NEXT STEP…

So we’ve come together at this crossroads of sorts. Me, I’m still growing up, a work in progress, trying to figure things out. I’m coming to find that I don’t know much…and that’s ok. This blog is my attempt at communicating my journey with people, helping me to remember how far I’ve come and remain accountable. Hopefully, this exercise will help me to develop as a communicator and share some of the overlooked and unshared parts of life.

I have no idea if I’ll keep the title or change the description a thousand times. This is an odd experience for me. It will not be a diary or online journal, however I will talk about the experiences of my life that happen to involve the people and things that I love and enjoy. Let me know what you think.