I loveth thou, let me count the ways.....

Things I love about you Abbey:

1. Your beauty (I'm proud to have you beside me - I married up for sure)
2. Your eyes (They've always been pretty enough to paint, Betty just beat me to it)
3. Your smile (It can be seductive when genuine)
4. Your hair (Whether it's straight or curly or both)
5. Your way of decorating (Even strangers feel at home)
6. Your willingness to help others in need (You're a magnet)
7. Your uncanny power to always have the ingredients for cooking dump cake (One of my favorites)
8. Your growth in your relationship to the Lord (Even through the pain)
9. Your strength (Many people lean on you)
10. Your way of changing direction in your passions so easily (From People magazine and TV to reading Crabb, painting, and writing)
11. Your common sense (It's not really hard to stand out in that category living with Mr. Gullible)
12. Your submissiveness to me even when I'm wrong (Thanks)
13. Your love for your family (And sometimes mine)
14. Your giddiness with me and the children (I really like it, it's just so loud sometimes)
15. Your opera voice (not your Mrs. Bunker as much)
16. Your sense of style (Again, not that hard when living with me, where people need 3-D glasses to look at me when I dress myself)
17. Your ability to win any argument just because you want to (I'd love to be that smart)
18. Your commitment to making sure that we have pictures of our family (Left to me, we'd have nothing but memories)
19. Your ability to vocalize the needs in your life (Rare, in my world)
20. Your brother Rob (What a great friend I've found)
21. Your sense of how to think like me when you have to (So you understand)
22. Your purity (Thank you)
23. Your taste in music (The White Oaks of course)
24. Your protection of our children's eyes and minds (To even ripping pages out of a library book)
25. Your patience in letting me watch football (War Eagle)
26. Your being proud of me (That means so much to me)
27. Your being willing to stay home with so many children (Sometimes some that aren't even ours)
28. Your silky pillow case (If you were gone, I'd miss the sound of swish-swish-swish as your trying to soothe yourself to sleep)
29. Your ability to keep a secret (And your faith in me to trust me with them too)
30. Your laughter (You really are a fun person to be with)
31. Your humbleness to drive a minivan b/c of your children (There are some moms who won't)
32. Your growing love and trust in the Lord (There's nothing greater)
33. Your love for me (I lovest thee as well)

Be glad you're disappointed...

Relationships are hard. Not hard like a math problem, but painful. Relationship is life, and life is relationship. When I was a little kid, I thought that life was about toys. The right toys that fit my mood were all I needed to be content in between the food. Most days all I needed was the enviable G I Joe Aircraft and I would have been good. Life felt like it was OVER when I couldn't have the ones that I wanted, but the pain would get worse. When I was in elementary school, life was being able to run faster than my friends and to have them respect me for that. Life felt that it was OVER when I had to face the fact there was someone better than me, but the pain would get worse. When in high school, I thought that being popular was the life that I needed to survive. Life felt like it was over when I was excluded or embarrased, but the pain would get worse. When I was in college, life was about finding and keeping the girl that I was supposed to marry. Life felt like it was over when she wouldn't have me, but the pain would get worse. When I got married to Abbey, life was having her love and respect me so much that I would be satisfied. Life felt like it was over when I realized that I'm usually not very loving or respectable. When we had kids, life was about being the best teacher to my sons. Life felt like it was over when I finally realized all that I had really taught my children. When I turned to the Lord, life was about figuring it all out and trying to fall into the doctrinely correct "ditches". Life felt like it was over when the Lord showed me that He will not be figured out by intellect, boxed in, or mandated by anyone.
These days of being 32 I wouldn't be the least bit excited over a new G I Joe, and I will readily admit that I don't care anymore if I'm faster than my you, and being popular has shown that it's only as long as the moment. I've grown older and wiser, at least in the sense of knowing what won't satisfy. I don't always follow that experience, but I'm usually not shocked in that I'm not truly satisfied whether it's in people, things, or feelings. The Lord is patient, and He'll take as long as it requires to convince us, in the deepest parts of the many caverns and oceans inside of our heart, that He and His commands are all that's worth chasing and counting on at all. People hurt us, things disappoint us, and good-feelings can change in a moment. My natural reaction, then, is to turn to the Lord to avoid the pain and disappointment that comes with life. But He then has become something else I try to use instead of to worship. I'm slowly (and I mean real slow) being shown that He is the only part of me that's good. He's leading me and He's with me always (inside of me), and because of that, I have all that I need. I have all that can possibly satisfy. So is that it? Is that all there is? No. Because I have in Him all that can possibly satisfy, I am now FREE to try to love others like He said, to even be hurt by them, or to even be treated like they don't think that I'm the least bit important to them. Does that hurt? Absolutely. But when we are truly trusting in His presence, it doesn't break us. It gives us the opportunity to run back to Him. When we believe that those other things or people or feelings are what we NEED, we still get hurt when they don't bring peace, but that's also an opportunity to run back to Him. Everything that the Lord brings into our lives are to take us to Him. Sometimes He can nurture us with His blessings and the resulting affection drops us at His feet. Sometimes He can nurture us by allowing hurt, and the resulting pain drives us into His lap. Soak in the comfort from that truth! Both avenues are to strengthen the relationship between us and Him! "All things work together for good...." For too long, I believed that that verse was an empty promise of the lack of pain, disappointment, and conflict in my life. That's just not true. All things work together to bring me to Him. Many times in tears and suffering more than in laughter, and that's still good. I would never change many of the pains that I've experienced (once they are over). They always seem to deepen my relationships with the Lord and everyone around me. Without Him working His love out in me, I'm just a weak man, an imposter, a liar, and everything else that the Lord warned us NOT to be in Scripture. Without Him and His discipline I'd be capable of it all. We should welcome the scars of sanctification. I'm falling more and more in love with the God that's bringing me through my life with all it's trials, pains, joys, etc. He still loves me even though I'm not faster than Him. He still loves you too, and wants you to find who you are in Him. You'll never find the gift of life in the things or the people of this world, they're not to be used like that I don't think.

Do you love me?

"Do you like me?" That's pretty much THE question we ask everyone around us everyday. Everyday. At least if you're anything like me, I guess. Our common conversations have so much of that in it. Why else would we be so offended when we feel others don't actually listen to us while we're talking? Why else would we be so hurt when people talk bad about us? Why else do we get such enjoyment from treating others like we don't need them? Why else do we work so hard to look good physically and not focus as much on the other parts of who we are? Why else are nice clothes so important to us? I want to know people like me. But I think that just scratches the surface of what we are really longing for inside.
We want someone to love us, and more than just physically. We are desperate for someone to love us all the way through, especially through the costumes. We've grown to just accept the short-term feelings that are given when someone is impressed with whatever role we are actors in at the time. It's sad. I see it in my kids. They want me to play with them, and not always just because they need an all-time QB. They want to know that I like being with them, doing their stuff. That speaks something to them that's deeper than words. But words are powerful too. There are times, after a rough day, that as I'm walking out of their room at bedtime and turn the light off, I hear the "I love you daddy" that is more than just telling me. It's asking me. You can hear it in their voice. They are hanging on an edge and need to be reassured of that before we separate for the night. They are questioning it in the little hearts. It's sad. It's sad that they don't know because of our time together all day. I would say that it's just something to do with that age. But is it?
Abbey and I can so easily just resort to separate comfortable "cowpaths" that may not intersect for days or weeks. Does she know that I love her? There's absolutely NO WAY that she could know just based off my actions. She wants to be pursued, and I want to run. I want to be admired and she runs. It's back and forth. Then one or both of us get hurt and take our pride and go home. It's sad. She wants to know that I love her, and she wants to know if my love is even worth wanting. Sometimes it's not, but sometimes it is. It really is. So is hers. We spend too much time trying to prove to eachother and ourselves that we don't need each other. Admittedly, I need my wife. I need her encouragment, her respect, her admiration, her nuturing. She needs my attention, my compliments, my agreeablness, my strength. My kids need my time, my ability to be proud of them, my discipline, my experience.
You know, we don't think about it enough, but we ask the Lord the same question all the time. Do you love me? Are you proud of me? Did I do good Daddy? Hey, watch me! Look what I can do! Despite what I want to think, I don't believe that the Lord is always sad with me. I'm learning more and more that He didn't die for me just to have some debt that He dangles in front of me to get me motivated to do laborious duties for Him. He died for me because He loves His Father. His Father sent Him to die because they both love me. They love me, so they wanted to set me free from the chains that were holding me down in death. That's something to celebrate. They celebrate.
Sometimes we think that Christ's death just wiped the slate clean and now the game just starts over again at 0-0. No, the game is already over. He wins. We win. Our nature wants to believe that He didn't really start keeping score until we were saved. How wrong. The Lord is showing me in so many ways that He loves me. He's not our coach, our co-pilot, or our manager. He's our husband. It's a marriage, not a team. It's a family, not tryouts. We should be more like our children and ask Him to show us His love. I don't ask my kids to just "figure it out", and neither does He. Tell your children you love them and back it up with your actions. Guys, don't neglect to show and tell your wives that you love them. If we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, then there is ALWAYS a part of us loves those in our life, because He does.

Living by Faith

Living by faith. I've always wondered what that was. I've also always thought that I did it. In thinking back on life as I knew it, living by faith only meant that I would go to heaven when I died. I guess that would be better titled dying in the faith, not living by faith. I also thought it meant that it was just my sins being forgiven and that I didn't have to "work" them off. I guess it is these things to a certain degree. I certainly don't want to take away from that. However, sometimes I added a little extra "faith" in the belief that God would change people around me to be less of a bother and that I would be delivered from the injustice in my life if I prayed the right prayer with the right heart. It seems these days the definition of living by faith is being changed inside of me. It's more than all that, and it doesn't have much to do with my comfort. At least not the comfort I'm looking for from other people, or money, or things. It's almost like there's a faith growing in me that's not man-made at all. It's not perfect, but it's deepening. I'm not perfect, but my vision is growing more clear. The past year or so of my life has been hard, really hard. There have been many times that I've struggled admitting how angry I was at God. I would argue with Him about His power. If He really was sovereign, then why didn't He do more things to rescue me and my family that made logical sense, or stop doing things that didn't. I felt like I hated His way of dealing with me, and hated Him for allowing my life to be like it was. I blamed Him for dangling things in front of me, getting my hopes up, and then stripping them away just to leave me helpless. My "kingdom" of comfort has turned into a demolished heap of rags. However, over the last few weeks my direction is changing and my affections are realigning. It's His way of loving me I think. It's painful, but it's good. I've had to lean on Him in ways that I've worked so hard to avoid. My response to injustice is changing. Slowly mind you, but changing. I'm starting to see it more quickly. I'm actually finding some sort of joy in Him that I don't ever remember having. Does this make me spiritual? Not in the least. It's nothing that I've done. It does make me happy though that He's spending time with me. I feel His presence more. I feel His peace more. Don't get me wrong, I still get scared alot. I still get angry alot. However, He's showing me to turn to Him with it more instead of turning to other things to ease it. He's bigger than my failures, vastly bigger. He's loves me more than I do, and that seems shocking. His love is just more true, and more real. His supply is bigger than all my needs. He knows my needs, but He wants my heart more than He wants to just see me comfortable. Those of you that know me may question all this, and I admit that I'm not a great standard to live against at times, well most times. But He accepts me, and that's becoming more and more all that I want, and I'm fighting that less and less. Trust Him.

Costumes, Candy, Christ, and a Kitten.

Sometimes I think that we live life like a big Halloween night of trick-or-treat mastery. We all work so extremely hard at creating these incredible "costumes" so we impress other people (including God Himself) that we should be the ones to get their "candy". Basically, the better trickster I become, the more treats I can get. We get frustrated when other people get more candy, become ashamed of our masks and try our darndest to mimic the mask that "they" have. We want their candy, or the most candy, and will stop at nothing to satisfy that longing. Face it, you don't get candy by showing up at someone's doorstep in your everyday clothes. How long till we stop being ashamed of our true selves, and start being ashamed of having to always be something we are not? I wonder if God is not more pleased when we just show up as who we are? Whether we are happy, sad, excited, depressed, fat, skinny, addicted, clean, content, desperate, or whatever.

I took a gamble tonight and let Ando watch The Passion with me tonight. That's such an emotionally challenging movie. It moved Anderson, for sure. Some of you may disagree with letting an eight year old watch that. I felt that it would be good to help make the story of what Jesus did for Him touch a more real spot in his heart, and it did. He's old enough to understand, and still innocent enough to be moved. As I was watching Him being willingly beaten for me, it made me think harder about whether He can be trusted with my life. I mean, admit it. The older I get, the more and more I realize that the common denomenator of all my sin is that I would rather control the outcomes in my life more than I want to lean heavily on Him. Oh, don't get me wrong. I lean on Him for things I can't control, or that don't really matter right now. My forgiveness, heaven, presidential election, world peace, death, are all things that I can trust His strength and sovereignty in. However, I sing a different tune when it comes to my daily minute-by-minute satisfaction. Lieing, lusting, the pursuit of "feeling alive" are all things that can bring immediate satisfaction, and I know that He doesn't operate nor define things the way I do. If I'm honest, I'm more convinced that I would do a better job at being god in my life than God Himself could do. If I didn't believe that, I would live a life of faith continually. Alright, enough of the emotional bleeding. His grace covers even that, and so does His sovereinty too. I believe that wrestling with these things is Jesus growing Himself in me more. That's faith to some degree, so that's a start. We get so concerned and worried about abusing grace and freedom that we don't even get close to it in reality. We're so afraid that we are going to miss out on something that we SHOULD do, that we don't ever stop and listen to what He wants to tell us.

But through it all, He's growing inside of me. My life doesn't shock or suprise Him. My failures don't obliterate Him or His delight in me. He delights in me! He doesn't delight in my discipline, my spiritual chores, nor my "moral muscle". He delights in me. His kindness leads me to repentence...true repentence. My shame leads me to be angry over certain sins. My pride leads me to be frustrated over some of the other ones. I'm not sure much of that is real repentence, for me at least. True repentence is me admiting at His feet that I need ALL of Him with ALL of me. There's a difference between being a broken vessel and being a self-made vase. He finds more glory in the brokenness. It's just that we hate it, because we have to admit then that we don't have what it takes to do it ourselves, outside of His working it in and through us.

The Lord has burdened me recently with the concept of the reality in a life of faith. My prayer is that maybe He is beginning that work in me and my hope is in that HE will be faithful to complete it. Can He find glory in my frustration? my failures? my addictions? my successes? my victories? my selfishness? my attempts at love? Yes! Yes, if it drives me to lean in on Him more. Is His strength measured in my developed strengths? No. Is His strength made perfect in my disciplines? No. His strength is made perfectly perfect in my weak weaknesses. A weakness is not a one time failure, it's a life struggle. There's something at war within me, that His strength is gaining victory over. Every so often, He walks the floors of my heart and takes a whip and drives out all of the things that I've let settle into my life that shouldn't be there. He kicks over tables legalism and self-reliance, and opens the cages of addictions and defeat. I'm His temple and He scourges it clean, because He delights in me. I enjoy knowing that He is so concerned for me and that He has the controlled strength to know exactly how much I can take and goes not one inch further until His time is right. Help us live with grace towards each other, holding tight to the hope that our faithful Groom loves us dearly and doesn't hold our adulteries against us any longer.

Oh, and I guess the kitten will stay. Abbey wins. Updated score...Abbey 107 vs. Matt 2, but who's counting?

We're Friends

Do you ever feel frustrated that you're not perfect? Well, maybe that's a little extreme. I feel frustrated a lot that I'm not better than I am. I wish I knew more Scripture. Not in my head, and not knowing that it's in the Bible somewhere. I wish I knew it more in my heart. That's where it begins a foundation. That's where it's planted. I wish I were more disciplined. I wish I were more brave to face my weaknesses and be comfortable with them, trusting in the Lord's timing. The good book says that His strength is made more perfect in my weaknesses. Maybe He's not as angry as I sometimes think He is. What if He's joyful in my weakness? That seems to go so far against my natural mind that I really can't even process it well. What if He's still smiling when I have a beer to take the edge off? What if He's still smiling when I'm playing the air drums in the car to Sweet Child O' Mine? What if He's singing along to some of the love songs...singing them to me while I'm singing to whoever can't hear me? What if He loves to see the non-stoic emotions pouring out of me that I would never show if I weren't alone? What if He just can't wait for me to wake up from a night's sleep to spend the day with me? What if He and the Holy Spirit talk about me while I'm sleeping? What if He's excited to hear me actually ask His opinion on something instead of just relying on my own judgment (doing that which is right in my own eyes)? What if He's sad like me when He sees someone hurting from the injustice of life itself? What if He's laughing when He sees me screaming and cheering that Auburn pulled out a game they should've won anyway? What if He is not as much of a jerk as I would be if I were God? What if He's better at loving my children than I am? What if He doesn't panic over my addictions because He knows exactly when He's going to free me from the chains? What if He's already got a "story" forming in my children that would be there even if they had another daddy? What if He's more like my daddy than my mind can fathom? What if my sins have already been sacrificed for, so I don't have to walk in shame as much as I walk in freedom? What if there's nothing left for me to "earn"? What if..what if...that could go on forever, and it'd be fun. The answer is...He is. He is - what an incredible statement. He is more than we can imagine. He is more love than we can grasp. He is more grace than we could ever earn. He is FOR us more than we are comfortable believing. What a friend I have in Jesus.

My Wife, My Life, and Everything Else

It says in the Scripture that God's kindness leads us to repentence. I'm so thankful that He still does that to me, through my wife. Abbey is the perfect woman for me. We've been married over 10 years now, and we have walked through so many difficult times. In some we held each other, in others we pushed ourselves apart. I'm sorry it's taken this long to actually convince me that God really has perfectly put us together. She's who I wish I was at so many times. I've been given the opportunity to be the one that she needs. I've been chosen to be God's hands when she needs holding, His smile to show her that she's loved for who she is, His heart to show her that we're not leaving when she shows she's not perfect, and His mouth for speaking truth into her life. And she's that to me. How perfect! How perfectly hard sometimes too, but still perfect nonetheless. During all those times that we thought we were almost over, we were actually growing closer without even knowing it. The Lord's hand never left. I have been given eyes to see that we are not together to hold each other accountable to "doing" better in life, as much as we're together to hold each other accountable during this journey to sit in God's grace. Sometimes we sit laughing, and sometimes we're in tears. We spend so much energy trying to prove to God and to each other that we are worthy of some level of praise. It's taken 32 years for me to be shown that I can't do it. That's shaming, but still true. I'm a failure! Praise the Lord that He's full of grace. I've asked Him so many times to show me His grace and mercy in a way that I can see it. I've been living with it in my face for 10 years and never saw it. She's His voice, hands, mouth, and eyes! For you skeptics from Bible Colleges, I realize that I can't find true joy in another human, but I CAN find true joy in the one who seiges the hearts of other humans - His body. Christ lives not only in my heart, but in my home. We get so caught up in "making it" in this life, that we turn our backs on the living that we can have with our wives. We can breathe life into them as husbands by being transparent enough to be Christ to them. I want my home to be a community of grace for Abbey and the boys. I can't help but think of the adultress woman's interaction with Christ. He didn't condemn her. Would I have? Are we more offendable than Christ Himself? Our mouths say no, but our actions prove otherwise. Christ is so gracious! He must have a higher priority for us than discipline. It's relationship! It's funny that we don't want that until we know the feeling of being thrown naked into the dirt in shame. Till that point, all we want is praise for our good deeds. However, at that point on the ground, nothing matters but relationship. Our noble deeds don't mean crap. Christ's aggressive grace and mercy don't fit into many of the boxes that we've worked so hard to build for Him to inhabit in our minds. I don't understand a whole lot, but I KNOW that Christ put Abbey and I together, and there's grace in that. I believe that now more than ever. I am in love with my wife because she was made with me in mind. I love my wife because she has shown me God's grace more than anyone ever has. It's no small thing that she's beautiful either. I'm a lucky man because God loves me, and since He's in Abbey, she loves me too. Abbey, no matter where our house is, it'll be home and safe because we're together by design. I look forward to falling more and more with you and Lord. You are THE lady...casually elegant.