Losiah didn’t crawl up and snuggle next to his new Power Ranger sword.
Losiah didn’t crawl up and snuggle next to the wii.

He came to me.
He found rest.

How quickly we, as adult followers of Christ, forget this simple concept and try and find refuge in crap.

The kid is not an idiot.  He came to dad.
I will drop everything and hold him and scratch his back and give him medicine and rock him to sleep.
Your job, your car, your porn, your food, your books, your Power Ranger sword won’t do that for you.
Only your Father will.

He’s waiting…
Los

But even if all you do is preach or sing or write about Jesus, the satisfaction from being known is sometimes greater than the satisfaction of Jesus being known.
Ah humanity.

So I ask 2 simple questions…
How has the current culture of Christianity helped this problem?
How does the current culture of Christianity solve this problem?
Los

What movie would you beg us to see?
What is the one movie that you would tell the world is not to be missed?
Los

This is a circular statement that needs engraving in our modern day worship culture.
Sure, sometimes they overlap.
But they are completely different gifting.
Say…Repeat…
Then do what God has called you to do…
Thoughts?
Los

_______________________________________________________________

One of my favorite episodes of Friends (Yes, I’m a woman in my 30′s…I know, I know…so cliche’…) was the one where they discover “perfect” Monica’s secret messy closet.

I mean that episode has proven to be 30 minutes of free therapy for what I’ve come to realize was one of my greatest sicknesses…

You see, the better half of my life has been spent living like Monica.
Organized on the outside.
Put together.
Good from far, but far from good.

I have tried, I mean SINCERELY tried to become like some of you who have every drawer, every nook, every cranny, every moment of your schedule- perfectly organized. Each January 1st I bust out my Franklin Planner and grab my boot straps and try to put first things first. But then someone calls and needs to talk, or I remember its my cousin’s birthday, or I decide its a perfect day to stop by H & M.

You see my dilemma, don’t you?
I’m a mess.

I have not hijacked Carlos blog to justify my laziness, or make excuses for why Proverbs 31 didn’t really mean ALL of those verses that haunt me at night. In fact, I’m still trying and growing and failing in my quest.

But what I am learning on this crazy journey of life is that being “good from far, but far from good” is really no good at all. Wrapping everything up in a pretty bow, doesn’t make it pretty.

And I’m learning that I’m not always pretty.

And these truths apply to more than just my ability to put my home together, or show up on time. Its roots go down into my heart.
My desire to live out an image of perfection is changing.

I’m learning to be okay with the mess, for now.

I’ve discovered that projecting an image of perfection only does a few things:

1. Reminds me that I’m living a lie.

2. Puts friends at a distance and keeps them from confiding in me with their struggles.

3. Keeps me from having a place to run when I struggle too.

I’m learning to be okay with the mess.

I’ve found freedom in the mess.

I’m loved in the middle of my mess.

I finally discovered that I wasn’t really fooling Him anyway.

And in the end He is all that matters.

He loves me in my mess.

And in that love, I’m transformed.

I know you probably have your stuff together, but let’s just say you don’t…

How do you navigate the messes in your life?

Do you hide them?

Do you embrace them?

You can read more from my assistant at her blog Metromom.org and at ScottsdaleMomsBlog.com

We have a way about us.
We have a way around us.
We have a way throughout us.
We, in all our humanity, have figured out how to take something so small, so tiny, so non essential, and turn it into the singular thing that takes us down.
It’s our greatest gift and our strongest curse.
Our ability to process.

Yesterday I tweeted this…
Our ability as humans to make an uncrossable valley out of a crack in the sidewalk is one of a kind. Step Back. Look Again. Step Over. Walk.

Today you are facing what seems like a giant.
It may actually be a giant.
It probably is not.

But if it is a giant follow this procedure…
When you are standing at the foot of a giant, and looking straight up, you can not see the entire situation correctly.
Turn around. Walk back away from the giant, turn back and face the giant, and now you can see the whole giant.
Not just his shoe.
When you do this you will find things you could not see from below him.
Like he’s blind.
He is asleep.
He is friendly.
The truth of this giant is far different seeing him from a distance than seeing him from up close.

Now if you turned around after your walk away, and you can’t see anything, it’s because it wasn’t a giant.
It was a lego man that your 3 year old left in the hallway.
You probably stepped on it in the middle of the night and cussed because it hurt for a second.
But it’s not a giant.
It’s a toy.
Now continue on your way and always stop, breathe, step back, and walk.

The giants will morph back into the toys they really are.
Los

OMG.

Electric fences. Guard dogs. Snipers.
Yea. No.

I get it. Who wants to be crushed.
But I think that we are going about it the wrong way.
The time to guard your heart is BEFORE you get into a relationship.
Cause let me tell you, the books may say that he or she is gonna wait for the guard to take a vacation, but it’s probably not gonna happen.
In order to experience the truth of relational bliss you actually have to GIVE your heart.
Not guard it.

You have to open your chest wide, expose all the nerve endings inside of you, and be ready to either find the fullness of the satisfaction of true love or the burial of utter and total rejection.
And let me tell you, both of those make you truly alive as opposed to existing.

So open up your chest, past any aspect of self, close your eyes, sprint, feel the wind rushing past your heart, and when you finally find him or her…
You will curse me for the heartache before them…
But you will thank me for the truth of the fullness you have found.
And you will never find it with guard dogs and snipers.
You may find a safe existing love, but you really don’t want that.

Be Alive In Your Search.
Feel It All.
It’s better that way.
I’d love your thoughts…
Fire The Guard Dog.
Los

Gibraltar is the only major airport where the runway actually intersects with a major highway. When a plane has to take off or land,car traffic is shut down.
I feel like this is a perfect example of how sometimes, although maybe with good intentions, our churches literally plow people over in order to take off.
When we start new churches and focus so hard on the business of the church, instead of the purpose of the church, we end up building airport runways across the major center of our communities and somehow feel like the people in the community wanted our new airstrip.

Build INTO your community as opposed to ONTO your community.
Thoughts?
Los

The Elephant Room Is TOMORROW!
Here is the deal.
You can STILL make it to one of the satellite locations and you can find out one of the locations here!
The names on this years list of conversations are Mark Driscoll, TD Jakes, Steven Furtick, and others.
I PROMISE you that you will not want to miss this conversation.
So yea.
This is a last second yell out to the Ragamuffin Soul community to take a few hours tomorrow and see some grown men, have conversations out loud, that most people are having in private.
Carlos