Sky Gaze Fam

How are we raising our children today? What are the goals and values we have for our children? Is it secular? Is it media driven? Is it based on old time religion? How about for my child, what are my goals and values for her? There is a sense that I have that we are losing "the old ways", that we are willing to chalk them up to inferior attempts at life. In some ways perhaps they are inferior. Modern society needs modernity to navigate it, but I really can't think of a specific way that our ways now are better than their ways then. But I do see ways that the old ways are better, seeing as they were built on centuries of communal living. Our ways now are suited to the emergent qualities of life today, mostly due to technological advancement and the effects of capitalism. What I am seeing as a result of modernity is passivity. We no longer know how to do life, because life is evolving, emerging, changing all of the time. And I'm not talking about the life that one...

"And so it goes throughout our day: a prompting here or a drawing there, sometimes a bolting ahead or a lagging behind our Guide. Like a child taking first steps we are learning through success and failure, confident that we have a present Teacher who, through the Holy Spirit, will guide us into all truth." CoD pg 167 Yesterday I asked God "what can I believe You for today?" I thought about Emmy and Steven coming that night and I thought, "ok, that's probably it" and prayed that our night would be full of the Lord. Waking up this morning, a hangover again, I'm not so sure that the "full of it" was the Lord. But I am not unsure either. But I did shift my perspective some. To me, a night full of the Lord is a night where I am full of the anointing and others are overwhelming blessed by my presence. I should much rather wish for the Lord to be in the mix and we all blessed by His presence. My desire to be the neo-like "one" i...

How do you know your wife loves you? How do you know God does? How do you know your wife loves you? How do you know God does? With both you kind of have to look for the evidence. It's little things, so pay attention! Today, I needed a reminder that God wants me to be whole and in connection with Him. I was kind of deflated because I'd been praying that a friend's cheating wife get a revelation of God, and I was like "I need a freakin' revelation of God." So I looked at where Jesus spoke about His ministry in Isaiah 61:1-3 (also was reading CoD "Leader of Worship"). Good stuff. Lord Jesus, be my leader today. And let me follow Your leading. In small ways, and even big, show me that You dwell in me through Your Spirit, so that I can build in confidence of Your love. Thank You, Lord for this day. In Jesus Name, Amen

Jess showed me a picture of us 6 years ago and it kind of wrecked me. I was handsome, she beautiful. We looked happy. We were about to be married. We've always had trouble communicating, but I felt the sting of it a little more yesterday, not the least bit due to too much wine. Nevertheless, there are dissatisfactions that I have. What do you do with those? Such is life. There will be dissatisfaction. But am I will to fight today for joy? Am I willing to soldier for a better life and to sacrifice for the things most important? My wife, my daughter, the students that I serve, the body of Christ. Today's reading in CoD was about preparing for worship and that we should have a holy expectancy about God's presence, and the power associated. What does that look like on my worst days? On the days where I feel hum drum and numb, what does it look like to have holy expectancy of connecting with Jesus Christ risen and alive, connecting with the Father through Him? Lord Jesus...

Jess and I went to a counseling session yesterday with Therez. Emotions began to well up in me, as they do, when Jess was sharing how I push her into hostility, and I had to pretty much eat it. I feel we really only addressed my part of the dysfunction (when my expectations are not met I found ways to corrupt the conversation and convey accusation), but it's ok, because my part is probably the major part. Hopefully, Jess will, however, examine her own hostility, as that likely is not coming from a good place. The best advice we received from Therez was that we learn to read each other. That we pay attention to each other's body language and words, that we see when we've pushed too much. For me, that I ask questions more than give suggestions. This morning I'm relating that sentiment to my relationship with God. The way that I have to develop a sensitivity to my wife, I have to develop a sensitivity to God. And with both my wife and God I have to develop (return to) ...

This morning I wanted to dig into the project work that I've been thinking about nonstop. But there was a nagging in me that I should start my day with some kind of contemplation, some kind of sitting before God. I've been wanting to make a greater commitment to that end, "in the morning when I rise". Sometimes, let's be honest, many times, I'm just not "feeling it". From past words of wisdom received from others, and from past experience I know that you can not base your faith on your feelings. Nonetheless, I find myself in that place of wanting sublime feelings all the time. But as I look to have a more stable faith life, a robust and convincing faith life, I am going to have to put my faith in something a little more solid, less fluctuating than feelings. I behave much of the time as a carnal Christian, one flirtatious with the ways of the world. But I cannot stay in that place, as a babe, forever. I believe God has so much more for me, but ...

Yesterday, the family went to Pink Palace. Saunders, founder of Piggly Wiggly, the first self-service grocery store, began building the mansion, but couldn't finish it. I've been thinking about that. Finishing what you've started. It's not always easy. We set out with the intention of finishing things but somehow a lot of what is begun doesn't come to completion. And to those onlooking, and perhaps even more importantly, to ourselves, we are mocked as someone "who couldn't finish what was started". Jesus had something to say about that. In Luke 14 he begins talking about counting the cost and compares it to building a house or fighting in a battle. He states clearly to the many people following Him, many who were hanging around because of the obvious benefits of being around Jesus, that it costs everything to be a disciple. You've got to be willing to give up everything to be a follower of Christ. It's the only way to make it to the end. ...

This morning I tried to still my mind some, to be open to God. Most often during meditation time I will try to get to a place of reception but instead allow distraction to congest my thoughts. Before long I am thinking about whatever my interest is for the day and I sort of drift away from the "sacred". I guess because of my meetings with Diane I am challenging myself to clear my mind and stay in that place so that I can be open to hearing from God. As I was in that more open place this morning, I was contemplating allure and woo. I was thinking about how I so quickly get allured into doing things because I think they are the right thing to do, because they have some high ethical value usually, but when it comes down to the discipline to continue in that thing, I tend to wane pretty quickly. I am not a disciplined guy (in some senses). But about allure and woo, I felt that allure is something that happens from inside of me (see the book of James) and woo is something tha...

I have a lot on my mind right now. I guess that I always do, but right now it seems like a lot more is possible for me to accomplish because I am on summer break. But I have been asking God that I live more into "today", more into what He has for me in each given day. There's no way that I can accomplish all that I want to, and so I'm increasingly desiring to switch my considerations to what I should be doing. What is best?! Of course, there could be a trap with considering "should", because that path could down a path of more and new things that I can't do. But by God's grace I will accomplish what I am supposed to. I think the chief thing that I have to seek God about, that I have to get into my life a whole lot more, is the doing of a thing rather than the considering of it. I learn so much more from doing, and yet I find myself considering a whole lot. Consideration is definitely good, but I find, for me, it puts me in this daze of circular...

My two main recurring thoughts over the past few weeks have been around the idea of being fascinated versus captivated, and the idea that maturity is being able to do what's best. Both ideas contain within them messages I need to hear and grow in. Fascinations fade, while captivations capture. Fascinations are arresting, while captivations are gripping. Fascinations become fads, while captivations become pursuits. The question becomes, considering maturity, what am I captivated by? I don't believe there is a firm footing for maturity without having some sort of good having a gripping hold on you. What is mine? Dear God, help me to progress in maturity. I saw a man yesterday doing the work he was supposed to do, with such conviction and intent that it was moving. I wanted to be like that man in the world, yet not I, yet not he. In Jesus Name, Amen *That man is Michael Rallings https://www.facebook.com/mpd1827/posts/memphis-police-director-michael-rallings-and-severa...