Last Week

Last week I had the opportunity to be Mr. Mom for a week. Here are some of the highlights from the week. Stuff I liked and stuff I learned.

Elsa is a sweety pie. I think her cheeks grew this week if that is possible.

Fiona coughing and Elsa laughing. Fiona says, “Elsa quit laughing its not funny. I got the science (she meant sinuses).”

We were watching a movie about prehistoric aquatic dinosaurs. We saw a depiction of a Tylosaurus. Fiona says, “Oh daddy, that’s a bad boy but you could kill him.”

Watching westerns every night because Elsa wouldn’t fall asleep in bed. Elsa and I watched 2 mini series ( Comanche Moon & Lonesome Dove)

Eating a bunch of McDonalds

Eating Baskin Robbins before lunch

Watching Fiona love the El Paso Science Museum even though it kind of sucks.

My wife is awesome! I really don’t know how she keeps up with both kids while keeping the house clean. She does this every week. It was so hard to keep my patience sometimes and it was near impossible to get anything done that didn’t directly relate to a child’s immediate need. My wife is amazing!

Listening To God (Remix)

1 Samuel 3:1 “Now the young man Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.”

There was no frequent vision……..

Why? Why does God speak sometimes and at other times He is silent?

I have been introducing my wife to the NBC series Kings. It only lasted one season because NBC had no vision or patience and they put it in an awful time slot. I bought it on DVD and have enjoyed sharing this awesome show with Desiree. It is the story of King Saul and David set in modern times. A huge theme in the show is the human desire to understand when, how, and to whom God chooses to speak to? King Silas (the character based on Saul) hears Gods voice and enjoys His favor until suddenly he finds God silent and absent. I have loved the story of David and Saul since childhood. As a child I always identified with David but as an adult I identify with Saul more and more. I feel like God spoke so plainly to us about going to El Paso but now as we ask Him about the future we don’t hear anything. Our Leadership Residency will come to an end soon (it last 12 months or when the money runs out). What are we supposed to do next? Where does he want us for the long haul?

Is He speaking and we are not listening? Are we not listening so He is not speaking? Are we disobeying Him somehow and he figures “if I can’t trust them in small things I can’t trust them with big things”? Or are we on the right track obeying Him but He is still silent? Maybe he just wants us to make a choice? Maybe we could do many things / go many places and He would bless any of our choices as long as they were made in faith? Don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad season at all! Things are going well for us on the whole and Paseo is doing great as a church. God has confirmed our desire to be a part of a network of relational house churches. We are on the right track, it is just the details that are fuzzy. Should I even be asking God about the details?

Maybe God will answer maybe he won’t. But no matter what I need to be listening. I have been struggling with listening to Him since we got here and I am not sure why? It has been difficult for me to establish a routine of silence, prayer, and study. But how can I expect to hear from Him without it?

“Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and
deny the voice”

T.S. Elliot Ash – Wednesday
1930

Eugene Peterson & Stephen King

About a year ago I tried to find every online interview I could of Eugene Peterson. After enjoying his work for so long I wanted to know more about him as a person. He doesn’t care for publicity very much so there were very few interviews to watch but one stuck out in particular. He was doing an interview about writing for a Nazarene College in California and he said something very interesting. Peterson believes that seminaries should not teach the bible for the first year of graduate study. Instead, Peterson suggested that seminaries teach their students about story and literature during their first year. After the students understood story then they could go on to study the bible. This surprised me because we are all aware of how serious Peterson takes the bible (he spent a good chunk of his life translating it after all). Peterson takes the bible seriously but he feels that the modern seminary system doesn’t. When students of the bible do not understand or love the power of story they tend to do a great injustice to the bible. I think ministers on a whole tend to lean more toward nonfiction (I know I do). Our libraries are full of theology, church growth, and leadership books. Most ministers I know don’t read very much fiction. When ministers don’t understand or love story the bible becomes a book of systems and dogmatics that is to be applied practically in order to achieve man made goals. The power and mystery of God Almighty fades away as we pursue “seven steps to a new you” or “how to plant a hip church of 3000 + people)”.

The reason Desiree and I ended up listening to God and following His voice to the ELP had a lot to do with a book Donald Miller wrote about the power of story. This past year God has made it clear to me more than ever that I am a character in His story (a very small character,Guy #3 stage left next to the water cooler). In order for me to develop as a character I have to constantly remind myself that I am in a story because I am constantly forgetting. My library is not huge by any means but it is dominated by nonfiction. If we are going to live in a story we have to understand and love story. It would be nice for me to say that I am going to start reading the classics. Maybe tackle the Brothers Karamazov? But no, I am reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I like it so far because it is a mix of genres. It is a fantasy, western, science fiction, mystery, and horror book. Mainly I like it because I am huge dork. To be honest I don’t think it is important what we read only that we do read (fiction). We need to be reminded that we are in a story and God is developing us.