If Only

Summer is finally arriving. Which has raised the issue of how we are driving a car on borrowed time. The AC is working? Sort of? It blows cool air, then cold air, then warm air. I'm not sure what that means, but I don't really think of it being on the "up and up." I'm listening to Hotel California right now; the live version, not the studio one (the difference is as great as night and day) to get in the "summer mood." It has to be one of the most beautiful live performances I've listened to. Absolutely incredible. It tells a tale of romance, passion, beauty, a luxurious hotel along an immaculate beach in California, palm trees overhead, the gorgeous sun setting beneath the waves; everything central to a great adventure in a latin romance. An picture of a breathtaking romance with Jesus.

Just like everyone else we've been watching this oil and gas leak in the Gulf. One of the math teachers at my work showed me the live video link from one of the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) that are positioned by the leaking pipeline. Usually when I'm at work I pull up a window to the side and watch it while I work. It's incredible to me what we are capable of doing. We are capable of amazing feats of destruction; the damage to the Gulf ecosystem will be extensive from this leak. We are also capable of doing incredible tasks. I know most people aren't fans of BP/Big Oil/The complete injustice caused by the mess the US has gotten itself into with oil addiction - neither am I, but it is pretty amazing that we can control robots a mile beneath the ocean surface and have engineering capabilities that are just wicked bad, as flawed as they can be sometimes. Yet, for all our engineering and economic ability, things in this world can just be so mediocre. So subpar. Boring would be another good word there. Our hearts tell us that the scale of the way things should be versus the way things are is greatly tipped towards the latter. Things really are not as they were meant to be. We have incredible hearts and thoughts, but so often they just fail to come to fruition. Why is it so hard to physicalize what we want? Paul gave a great synopsis of this dilemma in Romans and 1 Corinthians:

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:22-23. NRSV

This is a long mile away from engineering/etcetera; there are mysteries in these two passages that are so beyond our capacity to put into words; that it is best to just absorb them as is and feel out the Spirit in what they mean. How we all know the part of, we see in a mirror dimply. We see things, but they aren't as they seem. Humanity is like a championship team derailed in the big game (like OU in any one of the seasons they went to the National Championship, but when the game began, it just wasn't going to happen). Like a train going full steam, we watch as the engine goes off the track sending the cars into a tremendous explosion. We know in our hearts, through the intimate time with Jesus, the way his Word touches us, the right movies, the right music, the right time of day in the Summertime, that things just aren't aligned correctly. We see life, but it's through a mirror. And it's a dim one at that. We know what it is, but it's so hard to put into words. To complicate matters worse, we ourselves are unknown by this handicap. 'Then I will fully know, even as I am fully known.' But only then.

There is really one person who can obtain perfect intimacy with his beloved. And that is our God Jesus Christ. He is the one who can know us, inside and outside, perfectly. Even the closest of couples on earth cannot know their beloved as Jesus knows us. He is perfect in that. And it is our biggest handicap in this relationship. We are known perfectly by the Beloved, but we can only have a fleeting taste of him to sustain us-compared to what awaits us in Heaven, that is. He can touch us, smell us, listen to us breath at night, know what it's like to wrap his arms around us; we cannot reciprocate, yet. It builds the heart 'part' of our marriage with him; the foundation of our marriage with him will be definitely built on us deeply in love with him, not his beauty or strength. But we cannot or should not be allured toward from the idea that God is just a big stream of unapproachable light and that his beauty or glory should be compared to that of a distant galaxy or quasar. Jesus' beauty is wonderful in Scripture.

"You are beautiful, my love; ah, you are beautiful, your eyes are doves...you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely." Song of Songs 1:15,16

If only we could see him. If only we could hold him and have him hold us. And actually feel him with us. If only...then many of the troubles of this world wouldn't be such a trouble anymore.

Paul continued in Romans about what we do with that "if only..." for the time being:

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Romans 8:24-25.

We must learn the art of patience with God. True, we are needy with him. We need him. Desperately. But God wants us to wait for him. Patiently. God desires us, we desire him. But we are still just a little off our timing. Soon, Jesus will be with us. But until then, we have to love him as he comes to us now. As our Invisible God, in the Holy Spirit. Worship takes on a new form, a critical one now. It's no longer about satisfying a spiritual need, or getting in our daily "God time," it's about sustaining a relationship with him. More than that, it's feeding our own passionate desires for him. We HAVE to have him, and inside we won't have anything less than him. How much more do we need to set aside worship time with his Spirit being away from him and having to fight a spiritual war for his kingdom?

Worship is the most intimate act we can do. It's us adoring and interweaving our souls and spirits and hearts with Jesus' Spirit inside us as he loves us. It's incredible. It's perfect. It's something we need all the time. God truly wants to be intimate with us all the time, us worshipping him every second. He is so beautiful and desires to be pursued. Let's pursue him! I've been worshipping God specially in the early morning before I head off to the office. I just somehow feel him around me, inside of me, and I respond by worshipping him. Not that anyone can reach out and touch him spiritually, but the only response is just worship. And it's our act back to him in our intimacy with him. And it's incredible for our relationship with him, our future marriage with him. It's wonderful. God enjoys being known secretly. "Truly you are a God who hides himself." Isaiah 45:15, NIV. He wants to be pursued, for us to desire his beauty. I see the image of the heart of God so much in my wife and how she wants me to pursue her. A man in love with his woman knows that she wants him to pursue her, to want her and to go after her. This is a beautiful image of Jesus. He wants us to pursue him. To want him. To desire him. And worship is the most perfect way we have this side of Heaven to pursue him.

Oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirst for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1

Even in a spiritual desert far from him and holding him, our God is like "a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon." Song of Songs 4:15

Sabbath = Saturday

My daughter and I are huge sunrise watching enthusiasts. It's like watching the most calming scene from a movie a thousand times or watching Van Gogh paint a countryside portrait. We love getting up as early as 5 or 6 am to watch the sunrise. Alright, well, she wakes me up as early as 5 or 6am and since there's nothing to do but watch the sunrise at 5 in the morning, that's been our thing these days. I am married to the cutest girl in the world. Today she said, "Baby could you just change her diaper." And so I said, "Of course." After the diaper change, our little girl was WIDE EYED and ready to start the day. And so was I. Thus begins Saturday morning.

I'm a lot of things during the week. A husband, a daddy, a math teacher, a college student finishing up his degree, a coffee enthusiast, and a proud owner of a rescued black lab (who is really getting on my nerves this morning - btw). I am so glad that there is a thing called a weekend. Because for a couple days I get to skinny that list down to the first two. I usually reserve Saturday as my weekly day of rest, my sabbath. In any home, there is such a thing as divisions of labor. Mine is taking out the trash, doing the dishes when possible, taking care of our dog, taking care of the yard, and general upkeep when possible. Today, Sunday, I usually reserve for a good part of this work. So today, I get to text my father-in-law and let him know that I do not know how to clean the air filter on the mower I borrowed from him (even though I told him I did, to earn some man points with him) and then I will Ajax the cheese that is welded to the kitchen sink from last night in an effort to unhook it.

I've discovered that winding down each week with Jesus is one of the most important things I have to do in order to "survive" the next week. I really have found out why God made it a commandment. It's sooo important to have a day with Jesus, to rest in him. We all have our work in this world to do; but it's so fulfilling to take a step back and just look at all we've done for a day and rest and enjoy life with Jesus. Yesterday, I went swimming with my girls. It was awesome :) It's great to do things just because. God was so gracious when he gave us not only to his Son, but also to each other. He gave us one another to get and give incredible joy and fulfillment. I love seeing that look in my wife's eyes that is saying, "I wish this day would never end." I love seeing my daughter's face light up with joy. Relaxing with Jesus can become just being us and having fun. I think that not being too focused on worship on one specific moment during a day, such as a quiet time or Bible study or get-together with a good friend for coffee (although very good for us, no doubt at that), but instead spreading that out in every part of our relationship with Jesus during the day, allows us to relax greater on our Sabbath. It takes the pressure off of us to perform for God on Sunday (or whatever day you choose to take your sabbath on). And allows us greater freedom to enjoy the wonderful love, family, friends, world God has given us to indulge in and rest from our work.

I go to bed at night after a wonderful couple of days like this, living in joy and rest and the beauty of the woman in my life, and I have this ache inside me. For more and more and more of it. I want to do another cannonball with my wife into the pool. I want to spend one more night eating pizza and watching movies. I want to never leave the hot summer day hanging out with the one I love. And that ache literally cannot be filled. I could do it all again tomorrow, the ache would still be there. It's like I have to be connected spiritually, emotionally, and physically to a Source so that it will just feed me there in my soul's quest for a beautiful, perfect time with my loved ones and for everything to be made right in the world. I know that is an ache for God. It has to be. God is not a god who is obsessed with power, desires control, or is concerned with our bowing in fear to his might, he is concerned with being bare to us in our hearts. He gave us these aches after a wonderful day to draw us home to him. Ecclesiastes 3:11, God has set eternity in the hearts of men.

My goodness there are true mysteries about God that I wonder if I will ever understand. The biggest one, the one that captivates me daily, even now, is Jesus' beauty. And I know more of it then ever because of my wife. In Genesis 1:27 it says Jesus created man in his own image, male and female he created them. It's as men and women that we bear the image of God. Oh boy, that is a true statement. Nothing makes my ache to know God's beauty deepen more than when I see my wife. Just in the day to day moments, hanging out at our house, watching a movie, going grocery shopping - those moments are solid gold. I want to do regular things like that with my Lover Jesus, ALL the time! Then, the cake topper, comes in those special moments, when I see my wife's eyes light up when we are having fun, going swimming, playing with our daughter, laughing and hanging out while driving out to nowhere just because; oh man, this ache in my heart feels like it is so close in those moments to being filled, but, it's always just a little too far away. And in a very important way, until we are in our Lover's arms covered by him, that ache will always be there. It's his whisper calling us to him, cooing to us to pursue him forever.

There's a really good song we both like, Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night, by the Black Eyed Peas, and we love the part where they go, "Woooohoooo." In a way for my heart, it almost incapsulates the ache after a great day, and just realizing it's an ache for God himself. If you're a husband or a man who has found the woman he is going to spend his life with, you will know exactly what I'm about to say. If my wife is the image of God, in all her wild beauty, incredible joy, and eyes that draw me into a perfect world from across the room, then what will the Original be like? What will it be like being in a passionate love affair with Jesus and marrying God himself? It's going to be the fulfillment of that ache in our hearts is what it will be. I really suggest for some great intimate time with God, is thinking of what really pulls at your heart, like a really good song that you love, and enjoy it while worshipping Jesus.

Make it special! Jesus said, When you pray go into your inner room, close your door, and pray. (Matthew 6:6) Make worship special time. This is you and your God, the one who desires you, dreams of you calling him your Lover and you his beloved, and wants to be your everything, and this is your time to be with him. Put on that music he uses to draw your heart to him, light some candles, love him and make it special! Beg him to make you ache for him. It is WONDERFUL! He is our God and he is perfect and beautiful. And enjoy being near his beautiful Spirit.

And then one day we will be physically with him all day long. And it will be the fulfillment of all heart's desires in him.

And not only that, but it will be all of us together with God. We marry him. Yes, we all have our own relationship with him, but the wedding dinner after we say our "I Do's" to God is going to be wonderful. Food? You bet. The very best Heaven has to offer. Jesus said at the last dinner, "For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." Luke 22:18, NIV. Jesus gave up his wine for the last 2000 years, because he's waiting to have his next glass with us. Maybe while having a romantic, late night picnic? Or cuddled up with him by the fire? Who knows what surprises our Lover has planned. We can only daydream. And daydream we must! Hope is our ally on this side of eternity. Then after the finest dinner, we'll push back the tables, the music will begin and we will dance! (Jeremiah 3:4,13) We'll have the best wedding dance ever! We will have fun and party with our God! We will celebrate the beginning of our life with him and our marriage to him. Eternity will begin and God will crush Satan and evil under his foot, never again to be remembered in all the earth. And we will live forever together with God.

Happily ever after.

Why Getting Second is SOOO Indie

Alright, I'm a huge Dancing With the Stars fan. And the other night, my favorite went all the way, but ended up getting second place :( So sad. I thought Evan got judged way too hard by the judges on the last 4 dances, in my opinion. He and Anna were trailing Nicole and Derek by SEVEN points when it came time to announce the winner. Seven points! Seriously? I'm not taking anything away from Nicole and Derek (N&D), they were very awesome at everything they did. But there just shouldn't have been a seven point deficit going into the announcement of who won. Well, anyways, on the final dance, Len said to Nicole, You deserve to be the champion...That would be kind of demoralizing to me if I was Evan. And all of a sudden, I felt like it wasn't a fair fight. It was no longer about two greats going head-to-head, but instead it was about the underdogs Evan and Anna (E&A) trying to out N&D. Well, they danced, and got a 28 (should have been a 30 as far as I'm concerned). And ended up with second place. But out of all of that, what I really loved the most and won't forget, is the look in the eyes of E&A as they began their final dance. They had determination and desire and they wanted to win. And you could see it. And I loved their dance. It was sweet. They had a "Prom" theme. It pulled at my heart. But they still lost.

I think there is such a thing as "popular people" in life. People who just "have it." Whatever it is. They have an advantage. They could be slightly more athletic, slightly more intelligent, slightly more inclined to having a major magazine offer them serious money to be their cover model. It's like Duke playing Florida A&M in the NCAA tournament. You know who's better. The world seems to be a master at setting up competitions in order for people to fight for their place. It's almost like a ritual for their right to exist in some cases. Granted, this is a far cry from DWTS or college basketball, but we've seen it in our daily lives since high school. The guy who can bench 250 lbs, has washboard abs, and runs a 40 in less than 4 seconds, he's got a date for Prom. The guy who has 2 feet of hair, hasn't shaved in two days, and spends his Friday nights watching Star Trek 2, well he needs to go back to Hastings and get a couple rentals for that night because there's not a girl in the world who's going to go with him to that dance. I think the main thin gthat we should take out of this is that not one person in this world has the image of God more in them then someone else. But for some reason that is in God's reasoning, some people just win more than others. And that is okay. It's not the way it's meant to be, but for the moment it is okay for us.

For more years than I can count, I was the dude watching Star Trek late night. I was a social loser by society's standards. Ah, but in the end, I got the girl :) Why? Jesus. No other reason then that. In many ways, I am still a greasy-haired nerdmeister, but Jesus used that process of being a nobody in the social desert to purify my heart and make me truly trust in him. I needed serious heart-work to get me ready to love my wife. I had to learn how to love Jesus before I could love the most beautiful woman in the world. Oh boy it was worth every second I was out there in the desert with God! She makes every day special, like it's Christmas. If I hadn't been handed the role of nerd for so many years, I wouldn't have had time to be with God to really work on my heart. Being second was a wonderful blessing to me. And in the end, we all will reap what we sow. We will get the Kingdom in the end, even if we have nothing now. When we are poor, we are rich beyond belief!! God knows his people. He is the one Person out of everyone, including the angels, who is not swayed by physical appearance. When God looks at us, he truly does look at our hearts. He desires our hearts. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." Matthew 5:8 (NIV). And so the blessing for being a child of God and also being the quiet, unassuming girl sitting in the back, or the "dateless loser" dude from high school becomes this:

"Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come." Isaiah 60:5

When Jesus returns he will renew, or redeem, our bodies as spiritual bodies (1 Corinthians 15). We will still have skin and bones and stomachs etcetera, but we will finally be who we were meant to be. We were all meant to be radiant. The other night we were leaving our parents' house, walking out in the moonlight, and I stole a glance at my wife. There she was, beautiful in the moonlight. Striking, she was a goddess. She took my breath away. She's always perfect and breathtaking to me, but in that moment...wow, is all I could think to say.

The world with its ideas of marketing and consumerism wants to put a price on moments like that. Think about how much the makeup industry spends on capturing "perfect" moments with face models for their commercials. Why? Because if you buy our product, you can live as a radiant human being. You can live fully alive. You can finally be released as the person you were made to be. But only with our product. Now, is there anything wrong with buying makeup? Of course not. That's ridiculous how some churches ban the use of makeup, or forbid their women to try to look even somewhat decent. It's a form of control and a technique to quell their husband's fears that if their wives really looked pretty then they might not measure up and then they would leave them for Antonio who lives down the street with the awesome haircut and the washboard abs, far more than it is Godliness. But it's when that product becomes the medium by which you will have salvation and redemption of yourself, your image, your body, when it becomes an evil thing. And the temptation is there with it. The marketing ploys are begging us to feel like that about their product. And why not? If we do, then we have to have it and our demand will be inelastic. And they will make their money. But it is ourselves that we do it to. It's the sinful part of us that wants to believe that somehow, we can do it ourselves. And not by waiting on God. And that's when it becomes a sin to wear that makeup product.

Right now it seems that one of the buzzwords in the church is "revolution." And as much as I am an un-fan of buzzwords, this is one that is true. As Muse said in their song "Uprising"

They will not force us.

They will stop degrading us.

They will not control us.

And we will be victorious.

They might have written those lyrics tongue-in-cheek as a way to get crowds pumped up before college football games, but there's more truth there then on the surface. We need liberation of our spiritual senses. This world is so demanding to our hearts; it's a slave driver to our desires. And we have to put it in its place. It belongs to be crushed under Christ's foot. I remember when I was in Honduras on a mission trip. And was shocked to see the world's fingerprints there, even in the ghetto of Tegucigalpa. The images and commercials of the world's "popular people" showing off the latest product. Seriously? These people wouldn't have food for dinner if someone didn't give it to them out of the goodness of their hearts. The demons are going to pay for that one when God destroys them once and for all. These people didn't have a chance it seems. No food plus they have to deal with the world. We live in the most marketed place of all too. We don't have it easy. Just like Lot (before he had children with his two daughters - btw) living in Sodom, we are seriously distressed in our hearts by this culture. And why shouldn't we be? It's all geared towards getting our flesh to overrun us and change us to its ideals and cultural ways which are simply to do what feels right. But when we are truly alive in God, what really feels good is being near God. We must resist against this world. We must rise up now in the Spirit. And it doesn't start with picketing, or demonstrating. It starts by rising up against our own selves. Putting our heart for Christ above the world, and putting to death our own innate evil desires. We are beautiful in Christ, we are strong in Christ, we are lovers, warriors, poets, and dreamers spiritually in our God. Those are identities we can't find elsewhere outside of God. We are gods and goddesses in Jesus (John 10:34). The world promises pathetic copy cats to these things. We need to see things as they really are.

The real key to winning this battle for me is intimacy with Jesus. Not even intimacy, but ecstasy. We need intimate times with God that are mind-blowing and incredible. We all crave a union with God and we all need to get it. Not once a week, not just at summer camp or a mission trip, we need it every single day. We need times with God where we cry out words like what these lovers of God wrote:

Jesus, Lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly - Charles Wesley

I abandoned and forgot myself, laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from myself leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies - John of the Corss

You are the One whom I desire....There is nothing created that can fully satisfy my desires. Make me one with You in a sure bond of heavenly love, for You alone are sufficient to Your lover - Thomas a Kempis.

We need intimacy and INCREDIBLE ecstasy with God every day because:

1. We were meant to have it all the time with God. I mean, he put His Spirit inside us. How intimate is that?? I can only imagine being able to go into my wife's soul. Jesus does it with us because he is the one we will marry one day. Our bodies are his temple for crying out loud (1 Corinthians 6:19), not some church building. I mean really, if you saw the svelte Fernando saying to his love Britney on some afternoon soap, "Your body is my temple," you know he desires her. And Paul said in Ephesians 5: 31-32 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be units to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church." How much more plain can he make it? He wants to be intimate with us. Bad. He desires us. God wants us.

2. We need it to fight against our own lusts and shortcomings and to fight against the world. Our brains' pleasure centers will always be there, regardless of how close we are to God, how much we read the Bible, or how many times we go shopping. We need that part of our brain to LIGHT UP when we get intimate with Jesus. Our hearts need to race at the thought of meeting Jesus inside ourselves. We need to have similar physiological effects on ourselves when we worship Jesus as a person would when they are sneaking out for a secret rendezvous with their beloved at 3 am. Because in this world we still have to deal with our flesh. Instead of it being a thorn in our side, let's turn the tables on it and put to death sin and make ourselves physically crave God. David wrote in Psalm 63:1 "My soul thirst for you, my body longs for you, in a dry a thirsty land where there is no water." He desires God, body and soul. And he recognizes where he lives, a dry and thirsty desert with not a well of water for his soul in sight. Jesus is just waiting to be desired, pursued, needed. And he's waiting right inside of us. So worship him! :) Go for it!

We have a passionate God who is deeply, madly, crazily in love with us. He is giving us all of himself. And we our his forever.

What Jesus really wants from us is for us to say to him,

My Lover is mine and I am his - Song of Songs 2:16

Viva la Vida!

I really wanted to put this out there as more of a challenge to us as brothers and sisters in the Father. Let's live in our hearts in Jesus. Coldplay's HUGE and awesome album 2 years ago was called "Viva la Vida!" or better in English as..."Live the Life."

We are image bearers of the Father. I suppose if someone were to meet the son of Einstein, you would assume he knew a thing or two about advanced physics. Or if you met the daughter of Jane Austen, you would expect her to be able to write a decent essay on love and relationships (well, we would expect an excellent essay). Greatness is expected out of the children of the great. And why shouldn't it be? They grow up being mentored and fathered or mothered by a person who is excellent at their trade. Unless they have a heart completely opposed to their parent's heart for work, we would normally suppose that the child would be as good as the parent. I think us imaging God is similar. He is great, at everything. He is the greatest Father, the greatest Creator, the greatest Physicist, Dancer, Cook, Chemist, Engineer, Rower, Pilot, and so on. He is great at it all. So let's get released in our hearts and let go of what's holding us back and really apprentice ourselves to the Father in our work and just go do it. Maybe for some, that would be leaving that dead end job going nowhere that's a far cry from what we want to do. For others, it might be going back to school and being apprenticed by God there. Others it might be going away to do serious social work for the impoverished. And others it might be bring the Gospel to a land that has never heard it before. Whatever it is, this world cannot have hold on us as sons and daughters of God himself. When we are released into his work, we are apprenticed by God, and we draw ever nearer to him as we now know him in a way we never could before. Because now, we experience him as someone who not only cares about us, but understand what we really want to do with our lives. And that is incredible and liberating.

So let's throw off this world and follow Jesus into the unknown, into a land flowing with milk and honey (as the Israelites did). For some this might require a battle, but let's go charging into the battle with the Spirit and we will win. And be free in his heart. And there image him as only each individual son and daughter of God can. We will finally be who we are meant to be.

My Favorite Stores/Hanging out with my Loves

Hi my name is Joel, and I have a chemical and psychological addiction to coffee and Starbucks marketing propaganda. I decided yesterday I was going to quit coffee cold turkey for a little while. I was getting bored with it. About 10 minutes ago, I decided to take a break at the office and run down to Starbucks to get a grande half-calf coffee to help me wake up. So much for cold turkey. And for letting me be mastered by something in this world (The apostle Paul is still one step ahead! Darn you Paul!!! Revenge shall be mine!! - I'm really just kidding here) Too bad they don't make a coffee patch. I suppose if they did make one you'd have to wear it under your tongue so that your body could absorb as much caffeine as possible to keep you from having cravings. It was a nice coincidence too, because I really needed the break to reconnect with God. Even if I don't get incredible intimacy with Jesus at a time, it's always good to at least brush up near to him. To see him passing by in the distance. It helps remember.

Starbucks is one of my two favorite stores. The other is Hobby Lobby. I love Hobby Lobby. What a wonderful place. They have lamps and pictures and crafts and perfect little things that can make a house into a home. I mean, a house is just a house with walls, maybe some furniture, a couple of appliances. But when you really make it yours, with all of the pictures, signs, lamps, throws, and you can sit down on the couch or a favorite chair and feel cozy, that's when a house is finally a home. And Hobby Lobby just has so many things that are cozy.

The best is when they have the fall items on the shelves. Oh my, we're bringin in the harvest! That's good stuff. They have ceramic acorns and ceramic butternut squash. Plates with fall leaves on them. It's just a wonderland of Autumn. Fall is my favorite time of year. I love it when the house if fall-ish in decor, it's getting cool outside, but it's warm inside. Wonderful. But even with a good book and laying out in my blue, overstuffed chair by the window, it's not really good without a couple things: Jesus, my wife and daughter, and family.

Life with the Holy Spirit is wonderful. He is like this warm pool of joy that I can just slip into and find myself in a perfect place. He is my desert island and the one I love being stranded with. There's nothing like spending a whole day laying around in his arms. I find it so amazing though that God can be so jealous, even to the point that one of his names is "Jealous" (Exodus 34:14) and joyfully demand be to be a slave to his righteousness and his heart and pursing him, but give me my wife to love and adore as he loves and adores me. That's incredible that he loves me so much that he gave me her to be one with and yet he is so incredibly jealous of me at the same time. Now that's love.

A perfect day for me is laying around with Jesus and my wife, playing with our daughter, and letting the day pass us by - also called weekends at our house. But I can just imagine what weekends will be like in the Father's house! :) Before Jesus was about to be crucified he said,

"Do not let your hearts be troubled...In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place I am going." John 14:1-4 NIV

This is such a rich thing for our God to say to us. That new feeling, the feeling of planning a new home and shopping for it and knowing how cozy the home will be after we buy this lamp and get that picture and do our cross wall, that's what Jesus is feeling right now. Because every day he is putting together our home. He's thinking about the times we will have with him in eternity future. He's thinking about that time when we will be having popcorn and watching a play in the living room when all of a sudden it turns into an all out pillow fight/food fight/water gun fight/whatever! He's thinking about us snuggling close to him as he tells us a story by the fire on a wintry afternoon while the angels are making a turkey dinner with all the trimmings in the kitchen. He's longing for when we will have the pool party in the backyard, the entire family over to the house for Christmas, early morning breakfasts, doing our good work that we image him through in the office. He's also thinking about how his orphaned children in this world won't be orphaned but will be right in the middle of our family in the Father's house. And how the outsiders today, will be the ones on the sofa with him inside his house. Jesus said we know the place where he is going. We know it in our hearts. It's the heaven that he's made for us, and left us an impression with so that we can follow the Spirit home.

Jesus doesn't just want us around a throne paying him homage for all time. He wants our love, passion, desire, creativity, thoughts, needs, wants; he wants everything about us. And when we do that, we are truly worshiping him. He wants us in his Father's house as his beloved, betrothed to him, letting us live in his cozy home to worship him as we live forever with him. How can it get any better than that?

Hope in Jesus is our mechanism for survival. In Acts Jesus' is called by the name The Way (Acts 19:33). He is The Way for us to not let our hearts be troubled. This world is nihilistic and doomed to a slow, thermodynamic death. Our life is in the Holy Spirit. We have to cast off everything that tries to pull us away from the heart of Jesus. When I'm removed from his heart in my mind and heart, I am going down fast. School and work can be so hard, but the thing I am in the process of learning is just to rest in Jesus when I am on shaky ground and not certain if I can stay near him, or if I even want to. Resting in knowing that he is God and he is enough.

Psalm 131:2 - I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

David knew that our souls and hearts may be crying out (or rather demanding) for God to satiate us immediately with his Spirit. Sometimes he doesn't, other times we are trapped in busyness and it takes time to rekindle intimacy with Jesus. In any case, we shouldn't be troubled or anxious. He is near to us and he is preparing a place for us to be with him. He is here and moving deeply in us and the world. And thankfully we have found ourselves in a love affair with a God who said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

He is truly ours forever.

Some Randomness/Life/Time with God

I went to the dentist yesterday to get two fillings done. Yay. Dentistry is such a barbaric and elitist medical practice. First, the barbarism. They wanted to stick a 6 inch needle into the back of my mouth in order to numb my gums. Um, please don't? When I asked if it would hurt or not, I was told that it would. I immediately started repenting of all my sins and for Jesus to make it not hurt. (It actually wasn't that bad) They then drilled on me for 45 minutes. Tooth particles shot out of my mouth and the room suddenly smelled like an electrical fire....I'll stop there with the details. Next the elitism. My wife astutely noticed that when you go to the dentist you almost are guaranteed a lecture of some kind. "I've noticed, Joel, that your gums are starting to recede. You haven't been brushing correctly. From now on, instead of just pushing your tooth brush as hard as you can into your gums, you need to lightly brush. And brush in circles! Always in circles. Duh." They have a way of making you feel like crap because I haven't flossed properly in the past week and gingivitis is starting to appear on my gums. Oh, big deal. I'll have some Scope when I get home....So Adam and Eve fell, along with all of mankind, dooming the Universe to entropy and I got to experience that in the form of novocain shots and tooth drilling.

Also, this week, I started really listening to music that wasn't bad for me. Which is a good thing. I've been listening to Switchfoot's Mess of Me almost obsessively today. Such a good song. And so true too. I am a complete master at torpedoing myself emotionally and spiritually. I mean, I have a perfect good love relationship with Jesus. And yet, I insist on not just reveling in it but would rather listen to music and zone out. I get so much pure joy and happiness out of being near to him, but there is something inside of me that just nags and nags me away from him. It's awful. And we've all been there. We all have those songs that we know we just shouldn't listen to. And they might be completely ok lyrically, but they are the worst possible thing for our hearts. They're like spiritual cancer. I really need to indulge in God and in those things that bring me and him intimacy. Give me any song that will do two things:

1. Open up my heart. There are a lot of beautiful things in this world, but we all have certain songs/things/times/places that under the right conditions have the power to move us to tears. In a good way. In a way like in Ecclesiastes 3:11, where we have a better grasp on the way things should be with God. The way our love relationship should be with him if he were physically present with us participating in our daily lives. And these are the things we really must surround ourselves with.

Philippians 4:8 - "...whatever is lovely...think about such things." NIV

2. Keep me drawn into Jesus' heart. This is the tough one for me. I work in an office. Sitting at a computer all day. And I have total access to about a million things that can redirect my attention away from God. So even if I had an awesome time with God on my drive on the interstate, where we were close and intimate and just loving on each other, it's usually only a matter of time before my heart walks off into the world of business. There is an incredible story called One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (thank you to Eldredge for the synopsis in his book Desire) which tells the tale about a Mexican village who's inhabitants are overrun by an epidemic of insomnia. The first thing to go, memory. They forget the most menial tasks and items. And in order to remember, they have to write the name of things on a paper and tape it to the item. So they would go around the farm marking a pig as 'a pig' and a cow as 'a cow.' It gets worse and they have to write down explicit instruction on what to do with the cows and pigs and other farm animals. How to milk them, feed them, etc. And then on the entrance to the town they write a sign that tells them that 'God exists.'

I've been there before. Every day of my life I've been there for at least an hour. And so just as Philippians 4:8 says "whatever is true, think about such things" I need to know the truth; that I am deeply involved in a passionate love affair with the God of the universe and am caught up in a story with him of epic proportions that permeates everything in my life. So little of my time it seems is consumed with that basic truth. So I need songs which will help me remember that in my heart and mind.

We really do need to get space time with Jesus every single day. I like to "unplug" from everything and just enjoy him. I love to enjoy God's Spirit. He's wonderful and more of a rush than anything I've ever experienced. I get off the computer and the iphone and enjoy him; I want his heart to know that I am captivated by him and not by any of these other things that really aren't that important. And I so desperately want "ears to hear and eyes to see." I love being able to feel the romance with God in a cup of tea, a sunset, sitting on the porch with my daughter, talking and being held by Jesus, smelling dinner that's in the oven right now and imagining how exciting it will be in the Father's house when he calls out, "Dinner's ready!" And I will come bounding down the stairs with Jesus into a wonderful feast. Life with God is incredible. On a good day, life in the world is mediocre. Mostly it's just a drain. But oh my goodness, being near him and in his presence and his heart, it's perfect. Just perfect.

I just want life to revolve around this:

Oh God, you are my God,

Earnestly I seek you;

My soul thirsts for you,

My body longs for you,

In a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1

Imaging Jesus

So right now I'm going to Intersession at OU. I'm taking a 2 1/2 week, intensive class on macroeconomics. It is really interesting. I never really put much thought into economics until this class. It's completely foreign subject matter to me. I'm a hard scientist. I work with interesting equations; stuff pertaining to atmospheric vorticity, how big a rain drop will grow if it falls from the top of a cloud to the cloud base, radar meteorology. Economics is a "soft science." Dealing with human behavior. The behavior part is what is most interesting.

What is really interesting is something that I read in Ezekiel 28 where it is talking of Lucifer's downfall. The popular notion today is that he fell by pride. But Ezekiel says that before his pride, came the violence in his heart because of the violent trading he was engaging in (verse 16). Which confirms 1 Timothy 6:10, money is the root of all evil. And then Satan became filled with pride, and the rest is history. I can just imagine all of the "fireside chats" (*sarcasm*) Satan had with the other angels that he damned with him; how the economic benefit through the medium of violence to others, specifically God, would be of greater benefit to the individual (angel) then to living to serve Jesus. And I'm sure Satan did everything he could to make himself much more attractive than God; he is the like the cold witch in Snow White who believed himself the most beautiful in the Kingdom. And he failed miserably. But economic theory was at the heart of the beginnings of this war.

God is beautiful, perfect in every way, and he is incredible at everything. He's a genius; not to lower him at all to a human word, but he really is brilliant by all standards. He is the most brilliant Artist, Writer, Physicist, Economist, Chemist, and Lover. His glory, which we so regularly ascribed to some ethereal and unapproachable light, is in himself. It's in his heart, it's in his brilliancy (for lack of a better term), it's in his wooing of our hearts, in how he made quantum mechanics, how he can create and manipulate economic activity without a moment's notice to his desire, how he writes us love letters and kisses through the wind and the sunsets and a song and a cloud. Imaging God for us goes from being more astute in our ontological knowledge of the God who made the universe, from describing him as a watch maker who wound up the universe, sat back and watched, and through the process demands our worship, to living in a beloved's relationship with a passionate Lover God who desires our nearness, our intimacy with his Holy Spirit, and demands that we do he pursue him with a jealousy unknown in this world. He wants to release us into our image of him. We are given a name by him (Rev 2:17), one known only as a beloved of Jesus; a new identity that's given by his heart. We are to become experts in what our heart's desires our. Why? Because it delights us and gives us his glory to revel in. And his glory, is us. His beautiful bride made perfect only by his sacrifice and love.

So the person doing the cashier job from 11 pm to 6 am will be revealed as a child of the Father in his Kingdom and will finally be able to write that novel they've wanted to write since they were 15 years old. The person stuck in the dead end job, who's just trying to pay the bills, will one day be released when Jesus returns as the brilliant interior designer they've always wanted to be. God will ask them one day, "Have you ever decorated a castle before?" "No," we reply. And suddenly we are whisked off to a distant, but empty castle. "I want you to decorate it. Do whatever your heart desires with it! Because you love me and always desired me in your heart." We are given the keys to the castle with no restraints. We are co-heirs with Jesus and heirs of God to everything. And so Jesus will be right with us as we cut the curtains and pick out the furniture. No namers today will become pillars of glorified activity with and for Jesus in his kingdom. No social program or tax cut alive in politics today can compare with the reformation program Jesus is bringing with him.

But what can we do now with this? It sounds wonderful and all, but Heaven is so far away. And we sigh, put it aside, and get on with our daily work. Ever crouching lower to the ground from the weight of the load above us.

The Holy Spirit calls us to relationship with him now and to hope in him, a fruit of the Spirit; he calls us to what Paul so incredibly summed up in one of the most incredible and brilliant passages in the Bible:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:22-27, NIV

What God has for us, putting aside being able to do and be who we are meant to be, is for us to have a fairy tale forever coming with God as his sons and daugthers, and even as his beloved. God himself is wooing us to a marriage with himself. The world has nothing on this. Satan has failed. His dreams and economic plots were evil, they were awful, and they failed in every way. Let us put aside everything this world tries to pull at our heats with, and see things as they really are. I'd like to finish as Eldredge once wrote on Isaiah 14. How we will one day look at the antichrist, then a caged creature, and we will be in awe that this pitiful thing could do so much damage.

Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: "Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?" Isaiah 14:16-17 NIV.

And we will stare. And then we will walk away in the embrace of our Lover. And never again will we remember what has been done to us.

The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. Isaiah 65:17-18

My Lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one come with me." Song of Songs 2:10-13

And one day we will. When he returns. Soon...

We who are still alive and are left with be caught up together with them [everyone who has already died in the Lord] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18 NIV

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Years ago, I met God. And I met him through Jesus Christ. He saved me by dying for me. And it was beautiful, tragic. He was a work of art; or better he was the Artist that fashioned the most beautiful pieces I've ever viewed in my life. And then soon after I met him, I fell in love with him. And it was passionate, it was transcendent, untouchable.

I have made the staple of my life out to be the sum of a verse in Ecclesiastes:

He has set eternity in the hearts of men.

Or better, as the King James Version puts it:

He hath set the world in their heart.

I am a huge fan of John Eldredge. I don't know if you've heard of him or not; he is an extremely popular Christian writer. From what I can gather, he's kinda like a mountain man. Long beard, lives out west, probably has bear traps set in his front yard. He is a man in every sense of the word. And if you are unfamiliar with the terms man and the more generic term dude, one is a term used to describe a guy who if dropped out of a helicopter in the middle of the Sonoran Desert will be more than able to fashion his own shelter and live off of insect meat and digging his own wells. The other is used to describe the kind of guy you have over for pizza to play X-Box with. Jack Black would be considered a dude. He probably could kick it at your place on a Friday night and down a pepperoni pizza, but if he ever had to face real world conditions, like the desert or the forest, he would probably get eaten by a bear. John Eldredge on the other hand is a man. And for me, he made it okay to love God with all my heart.

I think one of the popular things to do today in church is to "put down" the preconception that people have of God and church/community groups/etcetera as traditionally being "boring" and how their groups aren't because they are in pursuit of life to the fullest with God/community that is fulfilling/serving the homeless/etcetera. And maybe we are on the same page here as I write; maybe it really is just really hard to put the pursuit of God into words. But God has literally set eternity in our hearts. There's a verse in 1 Corinthians that says, What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived the things which God has prepared for those who love him. Eldredge commented on this verse in relation to Ecc 3:11 and he practically said, This does not mean we should not try to dream of what God has for us, just that we cannot ever out dream God. I think one of the most popular themes in church today is serving. Which is a great cause. We need to let our love of God flow out from us into showing people that Jesus does love them by serving them. But the First Great Commandment, was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

So, my wife hooked me on Dancing with the Stars this season. I love it! Wow, never thought I would say something like that. I'm a huge Evan Lysacek fan (win it all next week!!!!). I also never thought I would find something in that show that drew my heart. On week 7, he and his partner did a Argentine Tango. My goodness, it was really good. It was incredible. The best dance I have ever seen performed. As I watched it, I could not help but think, Will me and God dance like that at our Wedding, the Wedding of the Lamb? God set eternity in our hearts, I might not be able to dream of what dancing with Jesus will be like, but I really want to!

Pursuing God has to be loving God with everything we have, everything in our hearts. It can't be just words, ethereal and all as they can be sometimes. If God has prepared a perfect world with us and our loved ones, a world where we come alive as the gods and goddesses that he intended us to be (John 10:34, Psalm 82:7), then we must respond to his perfect love with one that he is our everything, in every way. He is God, perfect, beautiful, amazing. He is truly the One who takes our breath away by stealing our hearts. He is a Lover, a Father, our Best Friend, He is incredible. And He is our Heaven and Hope.