I think I’ll just leave this here.

For those of you who remember the sitcom Seinfeld, you know that the premise of the show was that it was about nothing. If not, prepare to be disappointed. This is a post about nothing in particular. It’s just some random thoughts that come into my head.

What makes Chick-fil-A chicken so tasty? Honestly. I had a Southwest Chicken Salad and it was just as good as every other time I’ve had it — and believe me, I’ve had it lots and lots of times. Like probably as many as Tennessee has had drastic weather changes in the last two months. A lot.

I love the fact that I can go sit down at a table and whip out my app and complete an order without having to go stand in line. I can even pay for it without having to pull out my wallet. Technology can be amazing and it can be scary, but this is one of those times when it’s amazing.

And speaking of amazing, how cool is it that my Jeep is about five or so weeks away from becoming an antique. I figure that it was manufactured in April of 1997, so if I can manage to keep the wheels from falling off until then, I will be the proud owner of an old car. I guess that makes me old, because I remember when the car was new.

I love how my cat Peanut can just decide that she’s sleepy and immediately go to sleep. I like to think that my powers of napping are above average, but I pale in comparison to my little tortie. She can nap virtually any place at any time. It’s almost unfair that she gets to spend all day going from nap to nap while I’m commuting to and from my job and not getting to take any naps.

But the good news is that tomorrow is Thursday, also known as Friday Eve. The next day is Friday. Let the festivities begin.

I’ve been reading through a very interesting book right before I go to bed each night. It’s called Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth by Walter Brueggemann, and it is a collection of prayers that he used to open his seminary classes each morning. One in particular echoes the sentiments of my heart when it comes to hearing God’s voice above the cacophony of daily noises that constantly surround me. The prayer is called “The din undoes us.”

“Our lives are occupied territory . . .
occupied by a cacophony of voices,
and the din undoes us.
In the daytime we have no time to listen,
beset as we are by anxiety and goals
and assignments and work,
and in the night the voices are so confusing
we can hardly sort out what could possibly be your voice
from the voice of our mothers and our fathers
and our best friends and our pet projects,
because they all sound so much like you.
We are people over whom that word shema has been written.
We are listeners, but we do not listen well.
So we bid you, by the time the sun goes down today
or by the time the sun comes up tomorrow,
by night or by day,
that you will speak in ways that we can hear
out beyond ourselves.
It is your speech to us that carries us where we have never been,
and it is your speech to us that is our only hope.
So give us ears. Amen.”

All I got from this meme is that I want tacos. Or nachos. At this point, it really doesn’t matter. Either tacos or nachos will suit me just fine.

I remember there was a place down the road that served $2 tacos on Tuesdays. That was a good day when I could get 3 tacos for $6. Then it went away, and there was much sadness. They should bring back those $2 tacos.

The point is that sometimes in order to get through Monday, you need Taco Tuesday to look forward to. That’s all.

Today, I took a walk. I travelled down 8th Avenue South and took a left by Zanie’s Comedy Club. I then proceeded down the street and took a right, then walked down that road until it dead ended. There standing at the intersection is the future of The Church at Avenue South.

It’s the new (or more accurately, new-to-us) facility that will be the permanent home for Ave South. It’s the answer to the prayers of many people over a long period of time. Oh, and the timing could not have been any better with our lease running out in 12 months, just when we’ll be ready to move in after some renovations.

In my mind’s eye, I could see actual Vacation Bible School here. I could see families with their children excitedly heading for the playground. I can see people being introduced to Jesus for the first time here and finding the hope they’ve been searching for all their lives in all the wrong places.

I tried to take a picture of the entrance, but the sunlight washed it out. All you can see in the picture are the rays of sunlight drowning out the building. I’m hoping that’s the case for our future, that the light of God’s love and grace overwhelms everything else. I pray that we as a body of believers can love our neighbors and then get out of the way so that God can move in and get in the way.

Here begins a brand new chapter in the story of The Church at Avenue South.

My pastor talks all the time about how we typically spend an hour in worship on Sunday but that there are 167 other hours of the week where we live, work, and play. What are we doing with those hours?

I’ve been guilty of saving all my spirituality for Sunday and neglecting it the other six days of the week. A lot of us will profess belief in Jesus on Sunday but live like practical atheists the rest of the week, acting like God has no bearing on the decisions and choices we make.

If we ever want to grow in our faith and truly live out our calling, we have to do more than one hour a week. Back when I was playing piano, if all I ever practiced was one hour a week, I would never have gotten anywhere beyond playing one hesitant note at a time.

What living out our faith beyond Sunday looks like is sharing our faith with friends and family and getting involved in small groups that both encourage us and hold us accountable. It means finding people to mentor us and people whom we can mentor. It means spending time with God in His word and in prayer.

That might sound like Christianity 101, but I think a lot of us need reminding because we seem to have forgotten how to take it from head knowledge into hands and feet knowledge. I definitely include myself in that category.

Simply put, the more you make God a priority in your life, the more you will know Him and come to look more like Him. The more others will be drawn to the God they see in your life and not just the God you talk about.

In our all-consuming quest for numbers, we’ve made it all about accommodating instead of expositing. We’ve forgotten that the gospel is bad news before it is good news. The bad news is that we’re sinners who have fallen short of God’s glorious standard. That’s the part we typically leave out if we want packed pews and standing-room only seating.

The gospel isn’t a better morality. It’s not a different set of habits. It’s about once being dead and now alive. It’s about transformation. And it doesn’t end with a sinner’s prayer. Or it shouldn’t.

The gospel is for keeping you saved as much as it is getting you saved. The gospel is about making you not just a fan of Jesus but a follower, not just a body taking up space in a pew but a disciple who makes disciples.

We need to hear the preaching of ALL of the Word of God, not just the parts that make us feel good and that fit into our Americanized cultural version of Christianity. We need Romans 9 just as much as we need John 3:16.

If we change the message to fit in with the culture, we lose the only hope for redemption that made us unique. We might as well go home and close the church doors if we’re not going to be the church of the New Testament.

Maybe before we point fingers to how bad our culture is, we need to look in some mirrors to see how like them we really are. And then we need to pray for some revival.

For the uninformed, Wordle is a word game. Basically, you have to guess a five-letter word with no clues. It starts with you picking a random word. If a square is yellow, it means that you have the right letter but in the wrong place. If the square is green, you have the right letter in the right place. If the square remains grey, it means the letter is not correct.

I held out as long as I could, but I finally gave in to the madness. I’m addicted to Wordle, despite how it makes me feel dumb sometimes when I literally can’t think of any words. But it’s always worth it to guess the right word and watch all five squares turn green.

I suppose there’s an element of discipline in this game. I feel like I’m training my brain when I play Wordle. It’s all about figuring out a pattern, like using words that have lots of vowels and common consonants.

The trick is that you can only play once a day. Oh, and there’s not an app for it. The real Wordle game is a web-based game under the New York Times website. So, if you choose, you can embrace the madness and begin playing. Enter at your own risk.

Something about this setup appeals to me. Especially that comfortable bed. The old joke goes that I am good in bed — I could sleep for days. That’s what I feel in my soul after a whole week of getting out of bed at 5 am. I could almost sleep for 24 hours straight.

Maybe one day I can have a little setup like this. I don’t necessarily want anything big or fancy. I just want a place that suits me and that’s nice to come home to, like a haven or a sanctuary. Now all I need is to win a small lottery or something.

Brennan Manning writes, “One hundred years ago in the Deep South, the phrase ‘born again’ was seldom used. Rather, the words used to describe the breakthrough into a personal relationship with Jesus were, ‘I was seized by the power of a great affection.’ It was a deeply human and moving way to describe the initiative of God, the explosion within the human heart when Jesus became Lord of one’s personal and professional life. It lent new meaning to the old Russian proverb, ‘Those who have the disease called Jesus will never be cured.'”

I’m thankful every day that the security of my salvation doesn’t rest on my love for and faithfulness to God, because both of those waver from one day to the next. Rather, my hope lies in God’s love for and faithfulness to me, because His love and His faithfulness are as unchanging as He is. Throughout all my changing circumstances and moods, God is consistently good to me.