I knew it would happen. As soon as I entered blogdom my creative juices dried up. Suddenly the insights aren’t in sight at all. I suppose I could simply write about my life, but that seems pretty boring and pointless. Here goes anyway:

I woke up feeling kind of sick this morning – sore throat, cough, raspy voice… Two cups of hot coffee later I felt a little better, but by lunch time the cough was back and it was accompanied by aches & chills. I managed to get through the afternoon at work and got through an hour of homework with Ethan. I sent him outside to play with the dogs and tried to rest, but although my body wants to shut down my mind won’t turn off.

My day was a mix of meetings, emails, phone calls, a little bit of creativity (I rediscovered a great old Chris Tomlin tune called “Kindness” thanks to Crystal) & a class at the jail. I volunteer to teach a class to female inmates with a terrific lady named Chris twice each week. We got a new group of girls today. I really like them. They were funny and amazingly upbeat considering their circumstances. Our last group was the exact opposite and it made for a long eight weeks. I always love meeting them and getting to know them over the span of several weeks. One girl that I became particularly fond of was in my class for over a year. She’s been released now and is married and expecting a baby. She called me tonight and she’s doing great. It blows me away that God led me into this serving opportunity because it’s so far out of my comfort zone. Now I can’t imagine not doing it and I’m the one who’s been blessed by being there.

So the emails and phone calls today were interesting. It seems I keep having conversations with people about Church. Not MY church or anyone else’s church, but Church with a big “C” – Church universal – God’s Church. I’ve been in a season of questions. What should it look like? What should it be doing? What SHOULDN’T it be doing? What is right with it? What is wrong? How do we fix it? Do WE fix it? And they go on & on… The conversations are endless really, but I don’t mind. They feel necessary and right and I learn something from each of them. Over the past few years I’ve attended countless ministry conferences – all of them proclaiming the secret to the next big movement of the Church. I’ve gleaned a lot of great knowledge and wisdom from this, but after a while I’ve realized that none of them have really had THE answer. I’m not sure there really is THE answer so much as we have to be continually seeking what is best for the time and place we’re in. What is God doing? Where is God moving? Are we working with Him or against Him? Those seem to be the bigger questions. Granted, the answers aren’t as simple as completing a slickly printed formula, but I think they’re the answers that will last. If life with Christ is actually a journey, and I believe it is, then why wouldn’t we expect the scenery to change from time to time? But we don’t. We keep looking for THE answer so we can do it, see it work, feel good about it, get comfortable with it and call it good. Then when it quits working we get discouraged, frustrated and usually start blaming one another, or better yet the people we’re trying to “reach”. We decide it was never right in the first place and are tempted to give up all together. But maybe it was right for a time and now it needs to be a little different. Maybe the problem isn’t the change in scenery but rather our refusal to keep walking. I’m beginning to think that comfort is Satan’s most powerful tool. He uses it a lot. And we let him, because well…it’s comfortable.

On most days I would keep turning the conversations over in my head and holding them up against scripture and reading books on the subject. But tonight I’m sick. I’m starting to ramble and I think I just need sleep. Hopefully I’ll wake tomorrow with my voice back in my throat and God’s voice in my head, but for now I think I’d better call it a day.