Building stairs and a hatred of landscaping.

I've been working on building stairs off my deck. It's a high deck, and previously, there were no stairs, so you couldn't go down to the ground without going back through the house. Super annoying. I love building stuff. Sheds, decks, shelves, anything carpentry-related.

I hate landscaping. I can't do it. My patios are crooked and stupid looking, and I can't level the ground to save my life. I can build a deck square, level and plumb, but I can't reshape the earth if my life depended on it.

Just thought I'd share. If you like to landscape and want to help me out, let me know.

The Art of Forgiveness

I have been analyzing how I pray. I feel like I have been too "me" focused in my prayers, and I think that leads to a very narrow view of the power of God through prayer. One thing I noticed is when I pray, I always ask for forgiveness for each and every sin I confess. This is right and good, but the "why" of me doing this was flipped on its head, I think.

You see, Jesus died on the cross and paid for my sins (and yours, even if you don't believe it). The debt is paid, I am forgiven before the sin. I think I forget too often that I'm forgiven and find myself living in the shadow and guilt of my sins, rather than rejoicing at the grace of forgiveness I've been given.

I'm not at all saying we don't need to ask for forgiveness for our sins. We do, but I found myself asking for forgiveness as if the forgiveness itself was contingent on me asking for it right then. It's a hard thought to explain. I guess I feel like I need to keep the knowledge that I'm already forgiven in the front of my mind, and ask God to help me stop abusing this awesome grace of forgiveness.

I thought of an analogy that sort of works. The way I have been asking for forgiveness is kind of like me asking someone else if I can have my own shirt. I already have my shirt. The other person can't give my shirt, because it's already mine. It's silly. Rather, I should recognize and acknowledge that I've mistreated the shirt I've been given. I've rolled around in the mud and maybe got a mustard stain on it. I need to confess that I've mistreated my shirt, throw it in the washing machine, then ask for help to keep it clean going forward.

That may not make any sense to anyone else, but it was a pretty profound thought to me. So take from it what you will.

Where will my blogs be?

Right here! I'm going to use this as my main blog space instead of my MySpace blog. It feels more gooder and righter here.

Come back often!

Reclamation of Time

It's been a long time since I've felt like my time was mine. Scraping around the bottom of the barrel to muster up a few minutes here and a few minutes there to give to God and my wife. It wasn't working. Between church meetings, praise band practice, special events, I would be home maybe one or two nights a week, feeling trapped by my "service" to the church.

SUFFOCATE!

I recently stepped down from the praise band at my church, which was a very hard thing for me to do, which will require an entirely different post, but simply, I felt God leading me to focus on me growing with my family, not against it, and that can't be bad.

So, this is my first week of not playing with the team, and I will actually get to sit with my wife at church this weekend (albeit in the nursery)!! I'm excited about that.

Unrelated to my decision to leave the praise team, but related in the fact that my pastor was also being suffocated by nightly church meetings almost every weeknight, our church went to a "Meeting Sunday" format, meaning all meetings are going to be held one Sunday afternoon/evening a month, and that's it. No more first Monday, second Tuesday, every Thursday, some Wednesday, etc. meetings. Once a month and BAM, done.

All of the sudden, my time feels like it's actually MY time. It's been a looooong time, and it feels GREAT! I had begun seeing any church-related activity as a wedge driving itself between me and my wife and kids. Don't get me wrong, serving in your local church is important and necessary, but not at the expense of your relationship relationship with your wife. I find myself already being ultra-protective of my time. I have it back and can spend it on what is most important to me, and dole out my time as I see fit rather than wrestling with my schedule trying to cram in yet another event I don't have a day for.

I love it. Be possessive of your time. It may sound selfish, but I like to see it as time stewardship, not selfish... ship?

If you want to see the blog I actually post to:

Go here:

blog.myspace.com/thesobie

Thank you.

Amendment: This is no longer true. I'll be posting here from now on. 5/28/08