lalalalalalalalalalala...

we've been going thru some sermons recently about listening to God...or more specifically, asking God for guidance. which would require you to listen, yeah? it seems obvious but maybe not depending on your attitude or state of heart.

i think i had written previously a bit about my experience in not wanting to listen. not wanting to hear what God was trying to say to me...or had to say to me...

you know, fingers in ear....blahblahblahblahblah....

it was a difficult time after my wife passed away but in looking back? i had stopped really listening before that. now why? i don't know. maybe i had just had enough crap in my life happen and i really didn't want to know what else God would ask me to go thru or do. honestly, i think that was it. if i stopped listening, God wouldn't tell or ask me about something else coming down the pipeline of pain, ickiness and discomfort. i guess i wanted to be done with that. i wanted to just coast for awhile. kinda go on automatic...cruise control...auto-pilot...

i was gonna stop listening for a bit...

wrong choice...

wrong, wrong, wrong...

triple-dog-dare-wrong...

schitte happens anyways and you know what? not listening prolly makes it tons worse to go thru.

wait...lemme re-do that...

not listening makes it tons...TONS! worse to go thru

i guess i had to learn the hard way. even when i thought i was ready to listen i really wasn't. i only heard or interpreted what i heard into something i wanted to hear...and to a degree, it was a bit painful...in a revealing type of way. you know, and that's prolly the worst? when you realize you are not as well "equipped" or "mature" or whatever you think you are. more than just going thru schitte...you find that you're not as strong as you need to be to even get thru the minor crap. i'm talking just the everyday stupid schitte that just de-rails you for no reason...whatsoever. what happens when the real crappola hits the fan?

and so the answer is...you relent.

you surrender...

easy? fuck no. but you realize you relying on you has gotten you nowhere. so now you're ready to try something different. you're ready to listen and say "yes"...

one of the main points in the recent sermons about seeking God's council was to resolve to say "yes" to God before even asking the question. saying that whatever God asks...you will do. easy? hell no! me, kicking and screaming. but in the end? worth it.

really really...

i have found for me, God speaks fairly clearly when He chooses to. not always the same way everytime but pretty clear nonetheless. whether it's thru something a friend may say or you may hear in or sermon...or something you read...

or that voice...

you know the one...

the one that sounds like a trusted friend...or yours...or one you don't recognize yet feels, familiar...safe...true...

i don't know how or if God will speak to you?

i just know for me, God speaks...pretty clearly...whether i choose to listen or not.

i just need to resolve to listen and and trust...

if you dig a hole and no one sees it...

Grace comes in...Grace goes out...

so i've kinda figured out that most of the current journey i am on has alot to do with re-visiting certain places to close those doors or put those things away. sometimes these places are figurative...sometimes literal. a few weekends ago...these became one and the same. perhaps i can call it the great convergence...then again...it wasn't really all that great...but it was a convergence of sorts.

like any other good story, this one starts with me opening my big mouth. was i being prideful? no...not really. i just decided to share something from my past in a group of people that didn't necessarily show me in the best of...whatever. i shared about something i wasn't necessarily proud of? a way in which i said goodbye. in hindsight, i may not have done things too differently but i would not have taken so much joy in what i did either. ok...so maybe a bit of pride, in the worst sense, in the worst case...for all the wrong reasons. basically, i shared a bit about how i said goodbye to my old church, after the last time i lead worship there. i did it in a semi humorous, semi-disrespectful way. basically somewhat of an odd reference as i ended the worship time. if you want an idea, think Spinal Tap, bad English accents and rock n roll salutes.

yeah...a few people got it...but it was rather innocuous for the most part. still...bad form on my part...

what lead to my departure? my decision to leave my church of 10+ years?

I had a disagreement with someone on the staff. In my mind, I was fired from being a worship leader for pretty much that. there was other things said that were a part of that decision as well but that's another story for another day and perhaps in hindsight, a story that does not need re-telling anymore... unless you really, really, really want to know of course. you could prolly drag it out of me with a wind-up car...

needless to say, despite the things tried to reconcile differences, forgiveness and the leaving and all that transpired...there were words spoken that still hurt no matter how much time had passed. perhaps i was still holding on to a bit of that grudge despite it all...

the beginning of the story started at a church retreat ground. it was there that this staff person announced that he would be working with our worship teams, the saturday evening before Palm Sunday in 2001. almost exactly nine years later...the same weekend in march, i was there again to lead worship for a friend's church's men's retreat.

as i was driving up to the campground, it seemed oddly familiar. when i walked into the conference building...the significance of the weekend and the room hit me...like a load of schite hitting the proverbial fan...

i almost laughed out loud. because if God ever uses 2X4's to get our attention...He just smacked me...well you know where...

there was a bonus as well. there was someone else there from my past that i could say...was a "difficult" person. not anyone that had ever done anything wrong or malicious. just one of those people that you...have a hard time dealing with for one reason or another. now i could have just tried to avoid him altogether...but that would be wrong. i did end up engaging him in conversation(kicking and screaming, me) a few times during the weekend and i'm glad i did. he's still pretty much the same person, awkward and all that. but now, i think i have a better understanding of why and whether that's the reason i viewed him differently or not...i guess it really doesn't matter. he's the same but in a different place with himself and i could see that was good for him. he was getting the acceptance and affirmation he needed to be the best person he could and i'm sure where and what God wanted him to be.

back to the original story...

that night, the message was entitled the "brotherhood of grace"...

ouch...

but laughter ensued. i knew what was coming...and i just had to laugh at what God was asking of me. because i knew i had to...revisit a place of hurt and re-open that door to move on....and i was ok with that because honestly, it was time. i was in a sense, ready for what He was going to ask of me because it was time.

it was time to let go of that period in life as much as possible. it had weighed on me more than it should have. it had hindered me from doing things which God was asking me to do. it was taking away my confidence. it was taking the joy away from doing things i loved.

it was time...to reclaim all of that...

and so i did the simple thing that God asked me to do in this situation. extend Grace...

God does ask hard things of us sometimes...but we're the ones who imagine them to be bigger than they really are. this was something i was avoiding for years and in the end, all God was asking me to do wasn't difficult at all. extend grace to someone. as complicated as the situation was, the act in and of it itself was simple. so a couple days later, i friended him on Facebook. now it's up to him to accept that invite and if and when he does, we'll take it from there.

i was dreading that weekend. it was my anniversary weekend...i was leading men i didn't know in worship. but in the end, God didn't have anything planned in relation to those things...He had bigger, better more deeper wounds that needed healing...and being the Great Physician He is? and healed perfectly did He.

i guess the take away from that weekend is pretty simple and i know that my pastor had spoken about this fairly recently... Grace, needs to keep moving. it comes in...it must go back out. Grace comes to you...you need to extend it to someone else otherwise...what good would it be? Grace is a gift that needs to be passed on. it's not always easy to, but when you do...you're stinkin' glad you did. ecstatic you did. blessed you did.

i had two opportunities that weekend...and i'm glad for them.

the weekend? leading worship?

i was pretty nervous and anxious leading up to it. prolly over thinking...over dwelling upon it.

a friend told me "you'll be great and blessed for it..."

i don't know if i was great? but she was right in that i was most definitely blessed for it that weekend...

someone digs you a hole...God helps you fill it up...