I did the math. It’s been 140 days since I last posted. That’s a long long time. I guess I’ve kind of left all of the family updating to Bri, since she’s the one with the camera and the long days of Caleb’s curiosity and cuteness. This year has definitely felt like another adjustment. I’m still dealing with a number of health issues that are leaving me feeling hard pressed but making it through. Lately I’ve been dealing with pretty painful tendinitis in my right knee, a result of repetitive 45 minute drives to work and winless flag football teams. Health issues aside, we’ve migrated from our “old” company to a brand new “company” at work. We’ve been developing Facebook games for over 6 months now as Broken Bulb Game Studios, and having a lot of success so far. New office, new co-workers, and a new overall environment.

It’s also been a financial adjustment since we sold off good-ol MagMyPic. I’m thrilled to be relieved of the stress of that side project, but losing half your income means prioritizing the things you really need and learning how to budget properly all over again. It’s easy to feel more responsible with your money when things are going well. It’s another thing when you have to tighten up, and are out of practice a bit. God has been faithful no matter the circumstance, sustaining us physically but more importantly bestowing the grace of endurance through the physical trials and parenting trials, stress and such.

I’ve been teaching the Jr. High class at Desert Hills again lately, and we’re proceeding through a scriptural look inside Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. I’ve been alternating teaching weeks as I ease back into some of the responsibilities I used to have there. Learning to manage stress and in turn my stomach problems has helped let me add a few more things back in, and I feel edified by the new endeavors. We’re also completing our home remodel, so we are eager to let the stress of a thousand hammers and nails give way to a little more breathing room this summer. I’ll have my office on the other side of the house, so I won’t have to tiptoe at night anymore, and we have room to grow in this home (not saying we are just yet…don’t get ahead of yourself!)

Those that check in with us, I ask you to be in prayer for me to learn better ways to manage stress at work and home, prioritizing what’s important and loosing my grip on what isn’t. It can be hard, but the light and momentary troubles are more than worth it, and I am thankful for the place God has us right now.

Though I often feel the victim, I saw today the joy that can only be experienced in the deliverance of God.  Once might hope that God could grant some supernatural joy at all times.  But even that would have a different and distinct quality than the joy of deliverance that I found in my heart and soul today.  I found the beauty and majesty of God within this pain.  And I sure didn’t see it coming.

To joy in suffering seems at first a paradoxical bit of nonsense.  How does one rejoice in the darkness of pain and suffering?  I would be a fool to claim even a small crumb of consistency in practicing this truth, but as I have suffered in emotional physical ways in the past year, my eyes are opening more and more to His holy intentions for the seemingly endless and painful trials we face.

Many of you know the recent health hardships I personally have been dealing with.  Physical pain that has passed it’s torch to emotional pain.  It’s been difficult.  And yet somehow today I see the majestic beauty within it.  The distinct, unique, overwhelming beauty of God that can only be seen and only exists within the framework of pain.  It is not nonsense and it is not meaningless.  And it is certainly not cliché.  I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason.  That’s too arbitrary, too comfort driven.  I believe our pains and our sufferings, our trials and joys, exist to glorify God to the fullest.  God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, in the midst of loss.  In the midst of suffering.  He can be uniquely praised, uniquely worshiped, sincerely worshipped, in the deepest of valleys and darkest of nights.

I am starting to see the grace within suffering.  The blessing that it can be.  The reminder that God has not let me alone, he has not given me over to death.   Yet he lets us suffer, let’s us fall into trials to the praise of His glory and for the building of qualities that are incapable to develop outside of pain and trial.  And what a beautiful, lovely, wonderful joy I have found in this place where once only tears fell.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”
James 1:2-3

I am suddenly awake, a thousand impulses reach me in a fanciful flurry.  I realize all at once that I am at at a loss.  I am physically broken and spiritually shaken.  I lie in wonder.

I am like a man who has suffered a head trauma.  Suddenly I begin remembering not only what has occured in the past few days or weeks, but also who I am, have become, will become, should become, am becoming or maybe was becoming?  The questions swirly like a shifting wind and all the while I still marvel at how they are in my head.  I am suddenly awake, yet at a loss.

Where have I been the past few weeks?  My King has sent his most trusted search party to scour the highlands and find me, wounded and defeated, somewhere in the distant plains.  It appears I have attempted a journey that my own two feet have failed to sustain me on.   What a pity, I think.  It seemed as though I could have made it at the time, but at the time I had made such a decision I must have been in a silly mood.  The distance looks far to broad and wide now that I am suddenly awake.  These feet are far to battered and these legs can barely stand even in the cool of the day.

What a silly man I have become, am becoming…was becoming?

I pray the latter of the three holds true.

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” (James 1:2)

From the heart of me I pray that these words do not fall  without great impact.  I want them to hit me like an icy rain in the midst of a great storm, stinging me from slumber or distraction.

I am such a foolish man!  How often I have read this and how truly I fail to believe it.  I cry in unbelief.  I struggle in my struggle and fall within my mind.  Why can only hindsight find me praising!  Why can the countless times my King has built me convince this wicked heart.  I toil and toil.  I yearn and yearn.  But I come back to the same road and am found wanting.

What a treacherous road this is, the one of unbelief.  What a shattered heart it finds or rather creates.

I quest to speak loudly words that bring change.  Convey that which moves even the hardest of souls.  Long to swiftly free a man from burden and delight in his new birth.  I set out to satisfy the thirsting heart with wisdom from places deep and quenching.  To say aloud that which so inherantly needs to be said.  The chasm before me is one of intimidation and judgement.  The gap between saying and doing is monumental to the unworthy and a small jump for the truly loving.  I most often find it monumental.  It is never such a small jump.

My longings are nothing but self satisfying passions.  Only my conscience finds rest within them.  A longing unfilled is a place to wallow ever longing.  I please myself by the fact that I have them and produce a harvest fit for one.  My fruit is sour for it has been on the vine too long.

Never picked and never eaten, always bitter never sweetened, lost in stealing from the vine the truth that others would surely find.

If I opened my mouth.  Others might eat.  How can they believe if they never hear.  How can they hear if I never speak.

I struggle to think of the fact that my faith in the unseen seems less real than that of the visible.  I can completely acknowledge the truths of the scripture, those confirmed by my own experience, and yet fail in my following through.  I can profess with my lips the sweet truths but do little to act them out with my hands and feet.  Why?  I am bewildered at times.  I struggle with sin and such a struggle surely seperates me from a spiritual mind.  Is that it?  Maybe.  I am unsure.  I know that If i had but a moments glance at heaven I would be thrust unending into obedience.  Yet without such a glance I am not? I do not understand.

How is it that faith, my own, can depend so fully upon actual understanding?  Why must I fully understand / contemplate / visualize something to act on it the way I should.  Can I not act upon the unseen yet completely confident truths?  This is my struggle.  Albiet confusing.

I want so much to come to the place where seeing or understanding pales in comparison to the truth I know and feel and experience.  I want my overflowing obedience to stem from the truth while I am here on earth.  This is my prayer in such a confusing time.  Enablement to live with a faith that isn’t dependent upon seeing or understanding, but dependent upon truth.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” - Eph 6:12

This past week someone very close to me was the victim of the devastating power of sin.  In a moment, he was victimized.  Helpless.  Taken advantage of.  Violated.  Devasted.  Satan, in his efforts to distort, decieve, and corrupt mankind in sinful lusts and passions used such depravity to hurt someone I love.  To destroy a relationship.  To destroy a life growing towards Christ.  To bring shame and embarassment and torment to another.

I found it physically, emotionally, and spiritually crushing to witness the power of sin to devastate and corrupt God’s people.

I am angry at the devil.  But I do not believe that he succeeded.  I believe he thought he did.  My goal since this tragic event is to stand up in the face of every temptation I am faced with, and stand stronger than ever against his schemes.  I want to sweat day and night to defeat him.  I want to show him that he knows nothing in the sovereign plan of God, and that this tragic result of sin will in turn be used to bring more to Christ, to bring holiness to believers, and strength to many.

I want Satan to reflect on his influence in this situation and not be proud of the corruption but instead horrified at how what he started with sin is perfected and used by God to build people that could not have been built otherwise.  I want to stick it to him.  I want to horrify him with the work that he is in turn doing for the Lord.
Although I cannot go into the complete details of what happened, I ask if you would to take an conscious stand with me, mindful of this situation.  Refute his attacks with the power of God.  What a wondrous and amazing God we have that can take a horrible earthly situation and use it to build his Kingdom.  I want this one event to spur many.  I want Satan to look at this whole situation and realize he was working for God. I am not angry at the person who committed this sin against my friend.  I am angry at sin itself.  I know God is too.  And I want this sutation to spur as many as possible to strong devotion. Please stand with me.