In The Interim

I started this blog with the best of intentions.  It was supposed  to be my release valve and my repository.  Obviously I have failed in that regard.  But, that doesn't mean it hasn't been valuable.  I have written a host of blog posts in my head that I haven't taken the time to write out here over the years.  In working through those posts in my head I have ended up working through those feelings, emotions and situations.  I just never posted anything as a result.  Mission accomplished in the end in some respects, but now I miss out on having a record of all those things.

I guess I'm writing this as a bridge between good intentions at the outset and a new commitment to use this blog for its intended purpose as I go forward.  Why?

Well, God seems to be doing something.  Or, He seems to be getting ready to do something.  There has been a lot of activity around me - introductions that God has orchestrated, new opportunities and invitations, the closing of some doors and the opening of others and this freaky, scary-in-a-good-way feeling that God is about to move in and around where I am at and that He is going to involve me in it somehow.  I can't quite explain it better than that right now, but I feel the electricity in the air, the smell of it on the wind.  It is going to rain, really storm, as the metaphor goes, and I'm about to get drenched as I get caught in the middle of it.  And, I can't wait!

"God is very fond of you..."

It was on an evening drive home from Madison, NC in late August of 2010 that I called up Steve Pringle needing a friend to talk with.  We started to talk about how our walks with the Lord were going and I said to him that I felt very distant from God.  Not that God had gone anywhere, but that I had become so consumed with work and focused on trying to do well in a tough job situation, along with a mega-commute and a lot of traveling, that I just didn't have much of God in my life.  That I was missing God, because I wanted to be closer with Him, but I just wasn't.  And I knew it was me that was causing it.

Steve began to reassure me, as he always does - as any good friend would do.  He told me that God understands that life happens and that while He wants to be close with us always, He isn't going to get angry with us and turn away.  There will be times in life when we cleave closely to Him, and other times where there is distance and remoteness, but that those seasons don't mean you are going backwards.

Then Steve said something very profound to me.  Something that only God would say through Steve to me.  He said, "But, regardless of how you feel about how close you are to God right now, I know that God is very fond of you."

Whoa...

Isn't wasn't "God loves you", it was "God is very fond of you."  Fondness is a term that doesn't really get used all that often in romantic speech.  And romantic speech, because it is usually the best we can understand love through, is an easy vocabulary to choose from when we try and describe God-love.  Except that it isn't...it is too human.  So the easy sermon goes, "You can say you love candy and love God, but that love isn't and can't be the same."  So, if Steve had said that he knew that God loved me, I would have just thought, "Yeah, God loves me.  I know that.  I have known that since I was a kid."

But, when I heard Steve say that, "God is very fond of you," I was overwhelmed with emotion.  God, the Almighty, the Creator and the Everlasting...He didn't just love me.  He was fond of me.  That floored me.  When I think of fondness, I think of this really special, sensitive, appreciative kind of love or endearment.  The way an old man would be feel towards his littlest grandchild, or a mentor would be feel toward that once-in-a-career pupil of distinction.  It sounded rare and uncommon and intimate...and that is how God felt about me.

That is how He feels about me.  That moment, hearing those words and the feeling that God gave me with that little message was overwhelming and hasn't left me to this day.  Whenever I think back to the drive, that long commute, I remember that moment just north of Lexington, just passing the Richard Childress Winery and passing over the under-pass on the straight stretch before the long right curve when God reached out to me and said:

"It is okay.  I get it.  And don't worry about you and I - we are good. Not only do I love you, as I always have, but I am very fond of you."

The Beginning

I was talking with Steve Pringle one day and he asked me if I ever journaled or wrote down my thoughts, prayers and reflections. I didn't. He suggested I try it, or maybe start a blog that was only for me, as a way of working through stuff and recording it all. So, here is my blog - I don't know where it will go, but it will be interesting to see what I learn about myself as I learn more about God, about life and about where it is all heading.