New life...

That's the grass of my front lawn.

We've started working on it again.  *Again* because every year, in this one same stubborn spot, it dies.

Death and re-birth.

My friend's wife died last week. He's 34, she was a bit older. 28 days from her initial diagnosis she was gone, with Jesus.

The funeral was Saturday.  It was moving, scripture soaked, and very meaningful. 

You know what I've gotten out of watching, and praying, while this episode has unfolded? A new sense of focus.  I've gotten a shot of *new life* injected into my life's calling.

See, like you, I find it tough sometimes to keep going.  Sometimes I want to quit. Sometimes I get tired of waiting, tired of working for 'free', tired of writing thankless proposal after thankless proposal. I get tired of writing sermons I don't get paid for, tired of taking phone calls and emails from people I'm not getting paid to pastor.  I get tired of parenting, tired of working to be a good husband.  I get tired of battling sin, tired of doing the simple work of devotion.  I get tired of doing the right thing, tired of being patient with people who really need a smack upside the head.  I get tired of politics and manipulation.

But being 'tired' means I'm *alive* and, with my friend's wife's passing, I've realized, again, how very important it is to simply, humbly, faithfully *do* your job without sweating all of the above.

The practical upshot of all this is that I've received, in just the last month, a SHOT of passion, inspiration and patience for (half) my job; meaning the pastoral half.

I'd intimated on this here blog how hard the four or five weeks following Easter were for me. We hit our 'summer slump' early, I was preaching to a tiny room, and our services weren't functioning or flowing in the way I knew they needed to (for the sake of the people God has entrusted to our care) and I found that EXTREMELY frustrating.

Then, the week of my friend's wife's diagnosis, things started shifting. Attendance started climbing a little (not to pre-Easter levels, it is still summer after all, but to more respectable ones) and our services started flowing better and I started finding more joy in my preaching.

Could it be that all the praying we were doing for her, and all the introspection forced on us by thoughts of her, combined to shift gears spiritually for us?

Could it be that I was finally figuring out, at the same time, how to preach, with joy and about Jesus, verse by verse through an ENTIRE book of the Bible (which for me was an *entirely* new thing)? Did it help that I 'un-followed' a bunch of guys who were making me depressed?

Did the people start coming back 'cause the preaching, as a result of the process in me, was getting better?  Were they bored through the middle stretch of the book we were studying, just like I was?  As I, as their preacher, got refreshed did the same start happening for them?

Dunno'.

I just know that there's a strange wind in our sails these days.

I just know I'm not feeling as 'hemmed in' and 'trapped' as I've been feeling since September. 

It could be that I'm starting to 'accept' God's clear direction and settling down into my *actual* calling to do what I do (preach and produce) HERE in the 'provincial' backwater of town that is my home and that's meaning I'm kicking less against the 'goads' which means I'm plowing better which means the work is better which means the results should be clearer (which they are).

Dunno'.

I just know there's more fruit popping up these days.

Could it be that in finally getting my simple small sailboat and mooring it four minutes from my home on Lake Ontario I've stopped panicking that my 'dream' of taking to the seas (even if they're only the 'inland' kind for a while...) will never happen, and that's allowed me to re-focus on the task at hand?

Dunno'.

I just know that walking onto that dock four minutes from my house feels like walking into a whole other World.

Could it be that my friend's loss has inspired and re-focused this man and a host of others?

Dunno', and I sure as heck would never wish on him or anyone what he's endured.

But it just might be that his (and his 7 year old son's) loss is proving to be a mighty blessing to people around the World, and in my world.

I'm not *saying* any of this is the case, but I *can* say with certainty...

It's windy outside (the wind of the Spirit...) and I can FEEL it.

T