I talked to one person today who didn't understand or misunderstood this post so I figured I should clarify: it is a post about God's call to his children stuck in addiction to relational, sexual and other kinds of idolatry.

(This is a post about God's call to his children stuck in addiction to relational, sexual and other kinds of idolatry).

Oh, how I miss my home! How I miss the way you used to sing to me. Your voice was so beautiful – the way it resonated in the wide open spaces of your wide open heart. Your songs of love were a sweet sound to my ear.  And there I was – do you remember? There I was, living in you, reigning over your heart, a kingdom of love. A kingdom for everyone! Everyone in your life stared in wonder and disbelief at the beautiful love in your eyes, the way you looked at them, and your voice, the way you spoke to them.

No one was excluded. Everyone was loved, with a childlike, trusting love. Even those who were mean to you found a soft padding to slam against until they were exhausted from their aggression, got away to be alone, and sat down in their quiet places to reflect on your gentle responses. How many I spoke to in those places! How open their minds were in those moments to finally hear my call on their life!

But now you have forgotten me for another love. What is this thing? What is it? What does it do for you, really? It is a fraud. Wake up, my love, wake up! In the drunken stupor of your idolatry you have become like a drunkard eating maggot infested meat. In your feeding frenzy you say to yourself, “YES! Now THIS is is meat!” and in unspoken places you silently despise me for the discipline I was building in you.

I know what has happened. An enemy has fooled you. He asked you, over and over, “what’s in it for you?” Persistent in his lies, he has showed you the beauty of my creations in the distorting light of his fraudulent promises of satisfaction. You resisted, but now he has drawn you away.

Do you think yourself more open minded now? See how your mind has closed! For now everyone is judged -- by whether my enemy says they will help meet your need, or not. You are so attuned to his lies -- he has closed your ears and mind to the truth and love that I send to you, and has you prowling about like a predator, looking only to meet your own needs by feeding on the cesspools of fantasy.

Wake up! The communion bread turns to maggots as your worship turns from me to the created.  The person you see is not the person who really is. The relationship you experience is a fantasy -- all the words and actions are but scripts in a play, mindlessly uttered yet craftfully written as traps that lead to your destruction.

Wake up! See and feel the squirming, life destroying maggots you are filling yourself with. Spew out the ones in your mouth and call out to me in despair! I will kill them with a word and you will be clean. The enemy will still pull on you but, eyes open, you will follow me back to freedom.

I wrote most of this the morning we were moving to Baytown. There I was, rushing about trying to get a bunch of last minute things put together -- and taken apart -- for the movers to put on the truck, when all the sudden this whole thing just grabbed me like stray electricity. I dropped what I was doing and went into the office, and the moment I began to type it just streamed onto the screen. After a few minutes I felt the pressure fall off , and recognized that I could finish it off later. That just happened tonight so I'm posting it. I hope it reaches anyone who needs a call back to freedom.

So, Kevin sent over a couple of door magicians who got the whole door thing done in a few hours. They were even able to use some of the original trim on the living room side of the door to match the appearance of the adjacent doorway. Seriously skilled guys. The job was perfect. Thank you Kevin !!

I’m so grateful for the BBQ turnout. It was a blast! I think about 40 people came, and about 9 were from the neighborhood.  First only about 4 showed from the neighborhood, but then about 5 more came. It wasn’t as many as I’d hoped for but I think it was the right group this time and I think more will come next time as the word spreads. J I sat down with the first 4 for a while and we talked about work, and the neighborhood, then somehow we got to talking about church. I wasn’t ready for that …. somehow didn’t think that topic would come up ‘till BBQ #2 or something.

So of course they asked “what kind of church is it?” And I tried to say “it’s a cross between …” and then I couldn’t think of how to finish that sentence. So instead I just told them, it’s a church where we seek to have a real relationship with God and each other. A church where everyone is welcome and we are real and transparent with each other, because we want to know and be known for who we really are. A church where we are living life together enough to be there for each other in the hard times. (And like I often do, I forgot to mention the good times, lol,  but there we were all having a good time together, so I suppose that was already on the table). And a church where, yes we come in with some problems, but we encourage each other to seek God’s direction for what he wants to heal first, because we don’t always know what’s best for ourselves or each other.

One of the guys related how he’d been to a few churches before but didn’t go anywhere regularly because it was boring. We took a moment to try to figure out what church he’d been to and narrowed it down … yep … same denomination I grew up in. He said again it was boring. J I told him I remembered thinking the same thing and thinking, “it doesn’t have to be like this! Why should it be like this?” And that as I read the bible I see that God doesn’t want that kind of thing either, he wants our relationship with him to be as natural as a good relationship between a son and a father!

I saw them really take this in, and they asked about when the church met, and where, and if I could write down how to get there, so I located a couple of cards, wrote down cross streets and meeting time and stuff on the back, and a they said they’d visit, probably not this week, but next. Guess they might, or might not, come visit this time around, but I know they had a good time and will be back for more next time.

We never had to turn on any music, ‘cause Shae and Trav made some cool music together, for a while, and then Danny and I took a turn. While Shae and Trav were playing, the guys from the hood were commenting they’d like to go to a church with music like that.

Now, I simply have to pause for a moment of silence and reflect on the priceless gift of Earnie’s BBQ skills. Wow. MM, mm, good. Like no other. Thank you Earnie!

All the Refinery (Baytown Vineyard) folks seemed to have a good time, just hanging out and talking, and the kids had a good time playing together. Y’all reading this? Thank you for coming, for bringing your soda, your beer, your ice, your ice chests, your open hearts, your fun kids, your songs, your stories, your side dishes, your desert  … that was all so perfect. We felt the love! A ton of it. It was amazing, almost surreal. It was everything we’d hoped for in choosing this house, and more.

Please pray for one stupid detail if you would – don’t laugh !! – a good friend who does renovations came over to help me put a pair of doors up into a large opening to shut off my teenage son Thomas’ room so he could have some privacy. He got all the trim off and removed and replaced several frame pieces around the opening, and put the doors into place, and was having some difficulty getting the doors to line up right, when he got a phone call with some bad news and had to abandon the job. He won’t be able to come back and finish it any time soon and suggested I find someone else to finish.

It’s nobody’s fault, of course, and we wouldn’t have started the project if we’d had any idea his emergency would come up. But I don't know how to finish the job. At least not anything near the right way.

I’ve called another friend Kevin who does renovations to try to come finish it before the BBQ but I’m not sure he can get someone here that soon. So pray for that. (Imagine 40 to 60 people over, including young kids, with a set of french doors just off the main entry way just barely hanging on to the wall, and open holes into the walls and stuff … it’s just not safe …. and we’re really hoping it can be at least solidly in place and trimmed out before everyone shows up Friday!)

Saturday afternoon we went door to door in our new neighborhood to try to meet everyone on our block, and the other houses within eyesight of ours, and invite them to our July 4 BBQ. We’re hoping to sort of get to know everybody and allow any doors to be opened that can be.

Hardly anyone does this any more. (And we didn’t do it at our last house). So some of the results were kinda interesting. 

At probably about half the houses, no one was home or they just didn’t come to the door.

At one house, after we knocked there was a pause, a few sounds of someone moving through the house, then a highly irritated female voice – “I’m not buying anything!” We shouted back – “we’re not selling anything … we just moved in a few houses down and just wanted to come say hi!”

A few seconds later the door opened and there was Jean. After we all greeted each other, she said, “well, I’ll have you know, I’ve lived here 5 years and no one has ever come over to just meet me and say hi. People move in, people move out, and nobody gets to know anyone any more. So this is real special.”

A few more houses down we met Fiona, a very friendly lady who just moved in with her husband a few weeks ago and are renovating.

Across the street, we met Florenzio, Maria, and Annabell, and family, many of who didn’t speak English but all were very friendly (and have been actually since we moved in, waving just about every time they see us drive by).

A f ew houses down we met Hugo and Adiranna. Hugo came by a few days later to get our phone numbers. He’s not sure he’ll be able to come to the BBQ.

In a house behind us we met two older teens named Paco and Elvia, two older teens who asked us which house we had just moved into, exactly, and then Elvia said, “I knew it! That’s the house where they put up all those Christmas lights and decorations every year! And that whole block has tons of decorations up! It’s so cool!” So already we’ve got a “grandfathered” standard to meet. J

Most everybody else was friendly. One lady seemed in kind of a hurry so we cut introductions short and just invited her to the BBQ.

Finally we met Jose. I wasn’t going to go that far, to his house, as it was arguably possibly not really within eyesight of ours, but a voice in me was telling me to go, and that he might be the man who came out and watched from across the street when our driveway was getting replaced. So, I went, and sure enough, it was him. He was very friendly and excited to meet us. Come to find out he and his family are very active in their church and “could tell we were believers” by our demeanor. And they were excited that more outgoing believers were moving into the neighborhood.

After we finished going door to door the kids had noticed the neighborhood playground so I took them to it, and by chance, Jose’s nephew, Jose, came with his daughter and neice, to play on the playground, too. He recognized me and we struck up a conversation, exchanging our stories of how God transformed our lives, and what we were up to lately. He and his wife lead the children’s ministry at their Baptist church, but feel that denomination is not very important and that it’s more important to follow the direction of the Holy Spirit. As we were all heading back to our houses he said I looked like I was a missionary and I told him that’s pretty much how I think about life. He said he was certain I had a big calling on my life. I guess I’m hearing that, too.

This whole thing is new to me. Meeting neighbors. Throwing a BBQ party. Opening up the possibility of relationships with actual neighbors. I really believe this is what God is doing and I hope I’m hearing Him right.

Whoa! Check out what Randall's got on his blog! I didn't realize these were still being honored! Actually it was kinda fun using it, I wrote about it in comments.

http://weblog.xanga.com/lladnar777/662180613/gas-coupon.html

Just when the math kicks in, they run out of Priuses. Didn't Toyota see this coming? (BTW I hear they're working on opening a new factory in Australia).

The math worked out great for us when we looked at it. We put over 100 miles a day average on our main vehicle, 7 days a week. (I know, that's above average). Our van got 20 mpg. Our Prius gets 50 mpg. The 30 mpg a day will save 3 gallons of gas per day, or $12 per day. That's $4380 per year, which will pay for the entire Prius in just under 6 years in gas cost savings. (Side note - the battery warranty is for 8 years so it will still have 2 years left on the warranty at that point, though the rest of the car will be out of warranty).

Mind you the Prius is not really a very expensive car to start with. And, since our minivan has 190,000 miles on it now, it seemed a good time to "put it out to pasture" as a spare. It's almost out to pasture now - we're just using it to move a few more loads of small boxes and remaining odds and ends from our Houston house, and then we're gonna park it and take it off the insurance.

But there's a problem with Priuses. Toyota is out of new ones now. The waiting list is estimated to be 6 months. (We barely got one in time -- used, in fact -- one of two in Houston that Toyota Rent A Car had just taken out of their rental fleet). So now what are people supposed to buy to save gas?

Well, actually, as a good friend of mine pointed out, the math works out really well on several other cars too, such as the Toyota Corolla, Scion Xa, Honda Civic, Chevy Aveo, etc. ... tiny, relatively inexpensive cars with great mileage. (By the way the Chevy is made by Daewoo, I think, and is actually a pretty fun little car, and seems well made, especially for the price).

If somehow we could all cut our gas consumption down to half, I think we'd win this war a lot faster. But I definitely understand the hurt of letting a vehicle go for less than is owed on it. Had to do that once, and it was once too many. Ouch!

Today we closed on our house. But we didn't want you to think we got off easy. Oh, no!

In accordance with Murphy's Law, all of the following were in effect today:

• Our house is full of boxes -- and has been for over a week, since we were supposed to close and move last week.
• Our 9 yr old daughter is on day 3 of a 10 to 12 day virus with a fever and throws up at least once per day. It is contagious. Chances are, we will all take turns getting it over the next week or so.
• We have two extra children in the house under 8 yrs old, one of which has a medical condition that requires daily medication. All are sleeping on the living room floor in the 16 remaining square feet of space not taken up by boxes. They are here because their family made complicated arrangements for them to be here based on the assumption that we would be closed 2 weeks ago and already in our new house, which we were supposed to be. We didn't want to ruin someone else's plans just because ours have flown out the window, so here they are.
• I was in the perfect place at the perfect time to be exactly on time to closing, right up until 2 minutes before we arrived at the building, when I took a wrong turn and was lost (but recovered quickly).
• At 3:03PM, right as we parked at the title company, exactly 3 minutes late for closing, I received two work related phone calls (from other vendors, not clients). Now, I need to confess. I confess that I pretended to lose cell signal on one of them, which I have never done before, and sent the other straight to ignore when it rang. (Cell phone sociological downfall prophets take note -- apparently, neither call was urgent, as neither one was followed up by a voice mail or email ...).
• As Stephanie was about half done packing the kitchen, the children all noticed the kitchen activity and began begging for food. 4 starving children in the middle of packing a kitchen for a move.
• Our only son old enough to babysit is leaving tomorrow to spend the day completing his high school entrance interviews and entrance process.
• Stephanie has been sick for about 5 days, but plugging through

Counting our blessings: Murphy's law was definitely dishonored on several important fronts. Closing itself went off without a hitch! And with the exception of one very confused Home Depot Appliance Delivery department, all the vendors we need to get the house ready for move-in are scheduled to come tomorrow and do their thing. Thank you God for the blessings !!

Edith just commented, "i still can't believe you're really moving."

I can't either, lol. But I was talking to a good friend recently about church planting (which is not exactly what we're doing, seeing as the church seems very nicely planted already, but anyway ...) she said it was like surfing a giant tidal wave. We talked about that feeling of being swept away by something much, much larger than oneself, the feeling of lack of control, and the feeling of ones complete inadequacy to stop everything or affect a "save" should something go wrong. Then there's a feeling that results from this, one of gratitude for the faith and hope that God is in control, because then it's like our father throwing us up in the air and catching us -- it's scary, but it can be fun, too, because we know we're OK.

Well, this feels like that. I have a very strong sense in me that we are supposed to be doing this, BUT,  to my logical, methodical, meticulously careful and prudent side, this has actually been a completely unacceptable turn of events from just about every angle. I had everything planned out in every area this affects and none of this works with any of those plans. There were a number of very serious, substantial financial and logistical bariers to this move happening, and I am not a person to just ignore things like that and hope for the best. But every one of them has been pledged to be removed.

For example, I was in a contract for phone and internet service that still had another 2 years to end. That company has pledged to release me from that contract if I move to an area where they don't service (such as Baytown), though the contract does not have any provision for that and seems to prevent it.

And for another example, we weren't sure what we would do with this Houston house in such a bad selling market, but we though we would try to rent it, and figured that would be a long, tiring, and constant process of locating and screening one renter after another. And then the ideal renters emailed me from their honeymoon to ask if I happened to know anyone renting a house or something within a certain price range, area, etc., and this Houston house was the perfect match for them.

So anyway suffice it to say there are huge bocks lifting out of place, like a huge game of reverse tetris, decontructing a mountain, jagged piece by jagged piece, before my eyes.

Or maybe I'm just trippin from too many cardboard boxes.

Well, it's a good start, but we've gotta have everything boxed up by Wed night and I don't know if we're gonna make it. We definitely did all we could today. Steph's been at it for weeks. The movers come Thursday morning and they get paid by the hour. The good news is for a small surcharge they're moving the piano. So we don't have to have a separate mover for that this time.