like a fire

OK, so I haven’t posted much in a while. I hate saying this, but I have just been busy. Not too busy to blog, but too busy to think about what I would say to anyone who would read a post. Let me explain… no, that would take too long. Let me sum up.

My normal schedule of trying to get settled into a new church, get to know new people, plan the fall, network with some local youth leaders, meet families, be a dad and husband, etc. has been interrupted by:

Last week’s YAMIA (Youth Anglican Mission in America) meeting. It was really great to meet some of these guys and focus the mission and values of the YAMIA. Mostly, it was just really cool seeing other people in youth ministry with many of the same ideas and vision. These people were very close to my passion in ministry and they will be friends for a while. I left Wednesday morning at 5:00 AM and got back on Saturday at 8:30 PM. I didn’t sleep much.

Sunday morning I went to church and taught Sunday School. Then the room renovation began. Pretty much every single second I have had after 2:00 PM on Sunday has been spent working on this room. It is a lot of fun, but a LOT of work. Cathy and I have spent nights there that have gone into the early morning hours and began our days at 5:00 AM just to get it all done. Did we finish? Nope. Does it look really cool so far? Yup.

So tonight is the fall kick-off. Tonight’s message is done, most of the room is cleaned up and I am blogging. Does that sound like I am out of my mind. Sometimes I wonder.

BTW, I will post pictures of the room soon. Cathy is a genius and and artist beyond words.

I don’t care for raw tomatoes - at all. I don’t really mind them cooked in something like chili or spaghetti, but I just can’t stand a nice ripe raw tomato. So how is that good news? Stick with me.

I have been counseling more often than anything else lately. Not real counseling like Johnny or Grant or Trey, but what the church calls counseling. Mostly just listening and reflecting some things back. Maybe making some connections and, more often than not, trying to give a Biblical perspective on what I am hearing. So I find myself with a guy with some impulse problems who is saying he really wants to change, while continuing to act on his impulses. So I ask him if he likes tomatoes. He confirms my suspicions by replying in the negative. I ask him if he thinks he could learn to like tomatoes. He thinks about that one for a while and then admits that he couldn’t learn to like tomatoes. I then ask him if he could learn to like tomatoes if our friendship depended on it. He thought that was pretty superficial to base a relationship on that, but he still agreed that he probably couldn’t learn to like tomatoes then either.

I then asked him what desires he thought he could change. He is starting to get suspicious at this point. He through out a couple of half hearted attempts, but he knew that he that he was a long way up the creek by then. So I asked him why he thought he could change the things he loved acting out in. Long silence.

He then asks me if I am telling him that he should just continue following his impulses. I of course said no, but I did leave him knowing that only God could change his heart. I also made the connection of abuse in relationships. That is, how sometimes we follow our impulses and it hurts others. Our relationships, sometimes, are a lot like learning to like tomatoes. We can’t really do it, but we can eat them anyway, if the relationship is hard enough.

I asked if he could stop acting out even if he really wanted to if that would save a friendship. That was where it ended.

I told him that was the gospel. That the good news is that our relationship with God isn’t dependent on our desires or behavior. It does injure that relationship, but it doesn’t negate it.

Hope all is well in the land of impulse.