What can I say? I was grumpy...

Well, hello again! It has been an interesting nearly 2weeks for me. I am looking forward to sharing time with you all this Thursday night at McAllister Center - 6:45-8:00PM, as usual.

But, I must admit to you, in spite of the fact that I am supposed to be "noticing God" and leading this group...in spite of the fact that I spend my days face to face with thousands of people who, know it or not, come to me to see the love of God in me...I have been grumpy. Please do not assume there is a reason - I have tried and tried to analyze what it is that has made me grumpy. Why it is that I am behaving in such an unbelievably selfish way. There is no reason. I am just grumpy and selfish and darnitall - I want what I want and I want it 5 minutes ago (or more). This is the way I have felt more in the last 2 weeks than I remember feeling in a long time. It has disturbed my relationship with my wife, made my staff look at me crossways and prompted several of the people I serve to serve me, by noticing that I was just not myself! I have been pitiful! Yet, as I have been behaving this way, in thought and action, I am painfully reminded of something I read recently by Donald Miller - If I want to see the problem with the world, the lostness and pitifulness of the world, I only need to look into the mirror! This is not to say that I do not believe in God or His love for me, or His wonderful world and the joy of it, which surrounds me all the time, and which we spend lots of time talking about in More than more. What it means is that, as Miller says, I think about me most of the time. Most of my actions and thoughts circle around myself. Even after years of noticing God, I tend to often be the most important person to me.

This gets very frustrating to me sometimes, actually more frustrating with the more I grow in God's love...and most of the time I am repeatedly redirecting (or more specifically allowing God to redirect) my thoughts and actions away from myself and to the awesomeness of God or to the needs of other people.

But there are other times, times I'm not particularly proud of, when it is not very frustrating, at least not like it should be. I almost relish my selfishness in these moments and am horrified in a strangely tolerant way when I look in the mirror and see the "problem with the world!" It is almost like watching a really scary movie and you know you're going to have bad dreams, and maybe even not want to go into the woods for quite a while, certainly not to any remote cabins...but you watch with one eye open, enjoying the badness, but angry at yourself for enjoying it at the same time.

So, there I am, grumpy, selfish, and not even having any good reason for being that way, ond one morning I head to St Elizabeth hospital, here in Lafayette, to see my morning patients. This year is different than previous ones in that my youngest, Sophia, is old enough to come along. So, this particular morning, 9 yr old Emily, a little grumpy, 7 yr old Nate, a little grumpy, and 37 yr old Jason, majorly grumpy, were heading through St E with 4 yr old Sophia, not in the least bit grumpy. We walked in the back door and smelled the hospital smell (usually I don't mind, but with the aura of grumpy surrounding, I cringed at it) and began up the stairs to the 1st floor where the doctor's lounge is and where the kids pick up poptarts for breakfast. Me, Em, and Nate all dragged ourselves up the stairs and Sophia bounded up them and that's when it happened:

Sophia, still a "slow-goer" on stairs, paused and looked up. This is one of those old time stairwells with the open center that allows you to see all the way to the top if you look in just the right way. She saw the twisting of the architecture and it just tickled her all the way to her toes! She grinned first, then giggled, and then bubbled all that enthusiasm and joy all over my grumpiness. She said, "Look Daddy, it goes round and round and I can see all the way up from here, Hee Hee Hee!" as she smiled from ear to ear. At that point, I was first thinking of raining my grumpy authority all over her parade of joy, but then paused, looked up with her and relished for a moment how cool it really did look. In that small moment, she washed away some of my grumpies and a daddy saw how an amazing God can use a little munchkin of a girl to change a heart's focus, that I might be able to look in the mirror after that and see a little bit of the "answer to the world's problem," not in me, but in a God who gives doses of bubbly 4yr olds at just the right time!

I hope that you don't feel defeated when you feel grumpy - it's normal! Sometimes within Christianity there is a tendency to only focus on and admit to the good things. My friend Tim calls it the "Painted on church face." I have seen it my whole life in church. It was one of the reasons at one point in my life I decided that this whole church and Christian thing was not for me (I know, don't freak out - it's true, but read on!). I was trying to live this life just trying really hard to keep all the rules and be everything that everyone said I needed to be. Yet, it didn't feel true in my heart. I was not always full of joy. I was not always noticing the good stuff. Sometimes God even felt like a taskmaster who expected more from me than I could ever be!

Then I found the real God. Not the one who the church people of my upbringing hounded me with (and I hounded myself with). Not the one who expected me to somehow be more than I was able to be, but the One who wanted to make me more than I ever thought I could be. The one who loved (loves) me (and you) so much that He gave His blood, His pride, His position, His authority, His everything to show us how much He loves us! He did that before I began writing for Him. He did it before I started groups and before I started noticing His wonders around me and before I started loving the people of this world for Him. This can only mean one thing: He only expected (expects) me to be, to think, to feel, what I am able to at this moment, right now, and nothing more. He accepts me totally, as long as I am looking, searching, groping for the way to have the best relationship with Him that I can. That is all I can do - He does the rest. He irons out the grumpies and shows me the wonder of the staircase, through the eyes of a 4 yr old.

Hope this helps!

See you Thursday!