This is for you if you have wandered away from the faith or know of someone who has. This is a hymn by Robert Lowry, who penned such other hymns as “Nothing But the Blood” and “Shall We Gather at the River”. This expresses the Father God’s heart for all his children who have gone astray.

“Where is my wand’ring boy tonight—
The boy of my tend’rest care,
The boy that was once my joy and light,
The child of my love and prayer?

Oh, where is my boy tonight?
Oh, where is my boy tonight?
My heart o’erflows, for I love him, he knows;
Oh, where is my boy tonight?

Once he was pure as morning dew,
As he knelt at his mother’s knee;
No face was so bright, no heart more true,
And none was so sweet as he.

Oh, where is my boy tonight?
Oh, where is my boy tonight?
My heart o’erflows, for I love him, he knows;
Oh, where is my boy tonight?

Oh, could I see you now, my boy,
As fair as in olden time,
When prattle and smile made home a joy,
And life was a merry chime!

Oh, where is my boy tonight?
Oh, where is my boy tonight?
My heart o’erflows, for I love him, he knows;
Oh, where is my boy tonight?

Go for my wand’ring boy to-night;
Go, search for him where you will;
But bring him to me with all his blight,
And tell him I love him still!

Oh, where is my boy tonight?
Oh, where is my boy tonight?
My heart o’erflows, for I love him, he knows;
Oh, where is my boy tonight?”

I have a theory that goes something like this. When you’re in your twenties, pretty much the first thing you look for in the opposite sex is looks. Is he hot? Is she fine? I hear the talk about how a girl wants some rugged, handsome man to come sweep her off her feet and how a guy really wants the supermodel to go out with him.

When a girl says she wants to be persued, what she really means is that she wants a very specific person or type of person to do the persuing. All others need not apply. Guys for the most part only pursue the ones they consider very appealing and attractive.

I don’t think this applies to every single twentysomething out there, but I’d safely bet it applies to 95+% of the singles ages 20-29 out there.

When you get closer to my age, your thinking changes. Hopefully. You start to see beauty as not so much what the person looks like, but how he or she lives. Not so much cosmetics, but godly character make a woman beautiful and a man handsome. How they treat others and show compassion to the least of these makes them attractive. They aren’t nearly as concerned about being fashinable as about being faithful  and obedient.

Ultimately, the most beautiful part about any person is Jesus and the more He shines through that person, the more beautiful that person becomes. Apart from Jesus, all of us are dressed in filthy rags and stained with sin and are ugly messes. But Jesus loving us makes us beautiful again. The more you surrender yourself to Christ and lay down your life for Him, the more He shows in and through you. And there is nothing more attractive than that, in my opinion.

Jesus, make us more like You daily. Take our broken lives and make them whole, take the ashes of our messed-up world and make them into a beauty that will dazzle the world around us.

Amen.

For some odd reason, I was thinking about that part from Kill Bill Vol. 2 where Bill is describing super heroes. All the rest put on a costume, he says, to be the superhero and fight evil. That is their diguise. Superman, on the other hand, wears a costume, the suit and tie bit, to blend in. His regular clothes are the blue S outfit. In other words, for him being a hero is not something he becomes by putting on a costume, but something he does every day as a part of who he is.

That’s a hero. Not someone who tries to do great things, but someone who does what he does and performs ordinary feats in extraordinary circumstances. A hero is someone who has built a lifestyle of habits of doing good things and helping other people. They never consciously set out to be a hero, but to do their job. When that extraordinary circumstance occurs, they only do what they know to do, what they have done day in and day out.

In the spiritual sense, the heroes of the faith were (and are) not people who set out to be spiritual giants. They set out to be obedient and faithful. They cultivated a lifetime of making habits of obedience in small things and faithfulness with the talents God gave them. Then God brought the fiery furnace or the lions den and they responded by doing what they had always done– be faithful and obey God.

We are not called to be heroic, but faithful. We are not called to rescue the world (I think that job’s taken). We are called to be witnesses to what we’ve seen and heard and obey what God has called us to.

Jesus is the ultimate hero. His mission, astounding in its unwavering devotion and purpose, was to please His Father and to do and say the things God called him to do and say. He was perfectly faithful and obedient. He calls us to do the same. Love God, love others, trust and obey, no matter what. God may put you in a circumstance where you end up a hero, or he may call you to obscurity. Your and my response should be the same either way– trust and obey.

“There He goes – a hero. A savior to the world.
Here He stands with scars in His hands.
With love He gave His life so we could be free.
The Savior of the world.” (Abandon)

“[Jesus] told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’ ‘Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’ Jesus commented, ‘This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.'” (Luke 18:9-14, The Message).

Which one of these am I? Pharisee or Publican? By the way, Publican is just another way of saying tax collector, but it alliterates and it makes me sound smarter. But I digress.

When I listen to a sermon, do I automatically bring up someone else to mind who should be there to hear the convicting message, or do I apply it to my own heart? I think I’m the Pharisee on this one.

When I look at a homeless man who looks like my idea of homeless– filthy, bedraggled and drunk– do I think to myself “Thank God that’s not me or anyone I know!” or “That is someone Jesus died for and that very well could have been me but for the grace of God”? Again, I confess to being a Pharisee.

Do I look back on my week and see all the obvious sins I avoided and religious duties I performed, or do I see within a nature still bent toward sin and as capable of any vile thing as the worst criminal? Pharisee yet again.

The worst thing I can say is, “Thank God I’m not like that Pharisee,” because it just proves that I am exactly like him. At least he’s honest about his hypocrisy. I try to pretend to be a tax collector while strutting around like the biggest Pharisee of them all.

Lord, have mercy on me, a Pharisee.

It’s good to stretch before exercising. So says Captain Obvious.

It’s also good to stretch yourself in other areas. Like for me tonight.

I went over to Brentwood Baptist Church and helped out with Room at the Inn, a program they have that gives food and shelter to homeless people. I didn’t do much, quite honestly. I talked to a few of the men who were there and passed the salt shaker. I felt a bit out of place and awkward and not sure what to do with myself (which is pretty normal for me most of the time, actually).

But I think I stretched myself a little bit. Maybe not even a noticeable amount, but a little. I’ve heard that once you are stretched, you never go back to your original shape. You’re never quite as rigid as you used to be, but a bit more flexible.

Sunday night, I went to an evangelism training class. One point I walked away with was “The one who is listening is the one who’s in control.” Of course, none of us are really in control; God is. But we earn the right to speak into people’s lives by listening to them. Again, I got stretched just a tiny bit.

Go stretch yourself. Do something you’re afraid of. Take risks. The biggest way I’ve found to be stretched is to pray, “Not my will, but Yours,” and actually mean it. God is the best at stretching us into people that look just like His son, Jesus. I think the Bible calls it “being renewed by the transforming of your mind.”

God, stretch me until my arms can reach around the hurting and my heart can wrap around their pain. Stretch my eyes until they can see the people You love who are in need and stretch my ears until I can hear their cries. Stretch me until I become more like you.

Amen.

In his book, The Calvary Road, Roy Hession makes an interesting point about what it means to walk in the light as opposed to walking in darkness.  “When anything reproves us, shows us up as we really are– that is light. ‘Whatsoever doth make manifest is light.’ But whenever we do anything or say anything (or don’t say anything) to hide what we are or what we’ve done– that is darkness.”

Simply put, light reveals and darkness conceals.

If I am walking in the light, I am open and upfront about everything in my life, my struggles and my victories, even my addictions and strongholds. I am honest with myself and with others and especially with God. I am completely transparent. I seek out fellowship with others because I know I can’t walk the faith alone and that every believer needs other believers to speak into their lives, both encouragement and reproof (in love).

If I walk in darkness, I hide what I’m feeling and thinking. I put on my mask that says I have everything under control. I keep my faults and struggles hidden from everyone, especially myself. I am not going to be around people who might try to see beyond my well-practiced and rehearsed speeches and mannerisms. I make excuses for my behavior and focus on wrongs done to me.

I have walked both ways. I’m learning how to walk in the light as He is in the light. I’m learning slowly how to share my life with others and let them share their life with me. I still put on masks and lie sometimes, but I think not as much as I used to.

The beauty of Jesus and what He does is that if I surrender and say, “Not my will but Yours,” He takes those words and changes my heart to want those things, then He changes me. He is my light and His light in me is what anyone sees when they see good in me.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

If I put on a Sunday mask or

I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately and wondering where you are in this great big world. I’m fairly certain that I haven’t met you yet, but I can’t wait until I do. You already inspire me to want to be a better man and more importantly, a man who follows hard after Christ.

I don’t know if you’re like me and you’ve come so close to mind-numbing despair so many times and almost given up and quit about a thousand times. But there’s something, no matter how tiny, that won’t let us give up or give in. Maybe the same God that drew us each to Himself is drawing us ever so slowly together.

I am going to start praying for you tonight. I will pray not that God will make your way easier, but that He will walk through the hard roads with you and you will know sweet intimacy with Him. I pray not for prosperity for you, but that you will come to know with your whole being that God is your dwelling place, your shelter and your inheritance.

I may not have a lifetime to love you in when we meet, but I will love you a lifetime’s worth in the time we are given. It won’t be a perfect me and a perfect you in a perfect setting forever, but Christ in me loving Christ in you in the midst of the awesome advancing of God’s kingdom on earth.

So know that I think about you a lot and those thoughts make me glad. You will be so much more than I deserve and I will (I hope and pray) never stop being thankful to God for you.

Don’t run after me (or any other guy), but run after Jesus. I will try to not run after you, but also run after Jesus and maybe when we are both running toward the same Savior, we will run into each other.

You are clothed with strength and dignity; you can laugh at the days to come. “Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades. The woman to be admired and praised is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.” That’s what I pray you are becoming. And I pray that I am becoming a warrior and a mighty man of God who will be worthy of you.

Until we meet, God make His face shine on you and give you His blessed peace.

These are three things I’ve learned in 38 years of learning. This is not an exhaustive list. I know other things than these three, like how to tie my own shoes, that chocolate is very good, etc. But these three pretty much cover where I am right now.

1) I am not nearly as good or strong or wise as I thought I was. This is not an invitation to my pity party. This is true humility, which is just me being honest about me before God and before you. I am weak and prone to temptation, yet at the same time full of pride. I am a walking set of contradictions. But this makes the second truth all the more glorious, and that truth is this:

2) God is way better and stronger and wiser than I could ever have hoped or imagined or dreamed. He is not a bigger, faster, better version of me. He is Totally Other, separate and distinct from me. He is holy, which means that He is perfect, and can only do and be and say perfection. That could be a problem, since I am nowhere near good enough to even be in His presence. But that leads to the best truth of all:

3) God is for me and He will always take care of me. He knows the plans He has for me. And His plans for me are just as perfect as He is. They may not always look like the best, or even look like God’s plans sometimes. God may wound me, but the same God who wounds me can heal my wounds. He is totally and infinitely trustworthy.

So my part in all this is to stay trusting and surrendered. To let God be God in and through me.

I love this quote from Roy Hession from his book The Calvary Road. It sums all this up perfectly.

“The simple truth is that the only beautiful thing about the Christian is Jesus Christ. God wants us to recognize that fact as true in our experience, so that in true brokenness and self-despair we shall allow Jesus Christ to be our righteousness and holiness and all in all– and that is victory.”

This is what happens when you blog at 11:17 pm. Just so you know.

I’m going on record as being a fan of bread pudding. It is good. It is tasty. It is somewhat nutritious. Everyone should try it. End of story.

Every believer needs other believers who will speak truth in to his or her life. All of us need words of encouragement all the time, and sometimes we need words of correction and rebuke, spoken in love of course.

I have flirted with the idea of just giving up on the whole idea of dating and starting the first Baptist/Non-denominational monastary. But not just yet. There’s still a small sliver of hope.

Do cats really take catnaps? My cat takes marathon naps that should only be attempted by professionals. The only short naps she takes are when I come blundering by and wake her up. She then proceeds to give me a look of great annoyance.

Why couldn’t we fall back 8 hours instead of just 1 so I could really catch up on my sleep.

God has a plan for my life and He is working in out in me. I can’t see it right now, but I know God and I also know God is true and faithful and He will always finish what He starts in me.

I am not the best in social settings, but I’m improving. It all depends on how you look at it. I’d like to think my glass is not half-empty or half-full, but all the way full of chololate malt shake.

It really doesn’t matter whether 500 or 50 or even 5 read this blog. I had gotten caught up in the numbers, but the real point is that I get what’s in my head out in blog so my thoughts can settle down a little.

That is all for now. You may go back to Mafia Wars or Farmville now. Good night.