I remember a song by Steven Curtis Chapman called The Great Adventure. It was all about how the life of faith is the greatest of adventures and how following Jesus will often lead us into the unknown. I agree.

Life itself is a grand adventure if you know where to look and what to look for. You have to choose to look for the best and seek joy in everything. That’s when you see God’s hand in everything.

I still think that the only expectations that won’t be ultimately disappointed (whether in things or people) are the ones where we expect God will show up and do something amazing.

Even the best of us break our promises and will let other people down. We’re only human, and fallen humans at that.

I can speak from experience that God is the only one who has never let me down. And maybe Lucy my cat. Of course, I set the bar low for her.

I know I have failed at least once in all my relationships, especially in my relationship with God. But God has never and will never fail me.

Like my friend always says, I’m living the dream. Even if that dream doesn’t always look like I want it to. Or even if that dream feels like an episode of Twin Peaks.

Life is still good, God is still great, and I am still blessed.

I went to McKay’s after work because I needed to indulge my inner multimedia nerd. It worked.

One of my finds was an Elvis Presley box set that has sentimental value to me. That’s because it’s the same one that my grandfather bought for my grandmother for Christmas roughly 34 years ago.

Of course, there were no CDs in 1980. I’m almost positive of that. So my grandfather bought the 8-album (also known as LPs or records) set where mine was a 4-CD set.

I had very fond memories of my grandmother showing me that gift because she was so proud of it, especially after my grandfather had passed.

On the way home, I was listening to John Lee Hooker and thinking how proud my uncles would be to know how much I’ve broadened my musical horizons. At times like these, I miss them most but I also see the legacy of a love for music that they left me.

Life is bittersweet. Very rarely will you have pure happiness or pure sadness. Usually, happiness is tinged with a bit of sadness or visa versa. So choose to focus on the happy while acknowledging the sadness.

It won’t always be like that.

My life group ended up having a semi-unplanned game night tonight instead of the usual Bible study.

We played a dice game called Farkle with unusual rules that I’m still not entirely convinced weren’t made up as we went along. The deal is you get points for certain rolls or certain combinations. Rolling a 1 gets you 100, rolling a 5 gets you fifty . . . you get the idea.

The catch is that you have to have a round of 1,000 points to get on the board. Needless to say, I was the last to get points.

In fact, for most of the game, I gallantly held my own in 4th place (out of 4 people). Toward the end, I had a more respectable score, but still looked likely to finish last.

On my very last roll, I started off decently enough. I got another roll. That went even better. By the end, I had won. I went from worst to first in one turn. And I’m still not completely sure how I did it.

I suppose my takeaway is to keep playing no matter what the score is. Don’t give up. As the great theologian Don Henley sang, “Everything can change in a New York minute.”

Don’t forget this. God is the best at making impossible into possible. As I heard a pastor say more than once, what seems impossible to you and me isn’t even remotely difficult for God.

Just remember that on this Autumn Thursday evening.

I found out that an old TV show that I like is making a comeback of sorts. And by old. I mean somewhere in the vicinity of 1990-91.

I completely missed out back then, but thanks to the wonderful worlds of DVD and Netflix, I managed to watch all 30 episodes. Spoiler alert: the last episode ended on an unresolved cliffhanger. So far, I haven’t watched the follow-up prequel movie yet. But I plan to.

So the show will come back on Showtime somewhere around 2016. So I read in an article on the internet. And you know they can’t put anything on the internet that isn’t true.

That got me thinking. What else have I been waiting on for a long time? What have you been waiting on for a long time.

There’s a verse in the Bible that says that God’s promises might seem to be slow in taking effect, but God is good on His word. These promises are as good as done.

I think that might change a few of my prayers. It might change my outlook a little. Or a lot.

It’s raining quite hard outside. The last time I checked, it was rather windy as well. On a side note, this little blog will be ever so more enjoyable if you read it with a British accent.

I don’t mind storms. At least I don’t mind them as long as I’m somewhere safe where I can observe the effects of the storm without actually being outside in the middle of it. And especially not driving in it.

People around here (yours truly excluded) can’t drive in perfectly sunny and windless weather, much less in stormy conditions.

I fall back on an old illustration I heard and have used once. Experiencing the fear of God is like being able to witness the might and majesty of a storm while being safe from the dangers of it.

God is not just a stronger, bigger, faster, better version of me. He is totally other. And He deserves honor and respect.

That’s what it really means to fear God. Not so much a shaking in your boots kind of being afraid, but a reverent awe and a solemn gladness.

I suppose I’d better get back to reading my Tolkien. And maybe a spot of tea would just do so very nicely.

“Brian Johnson: [closing narration] Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain…
Andrew Clark: …and an athlete…
Allison Reynolds: …and a basket case…
Claire Standish: …a princess…
John Bender: …and a criminal…
Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.”

I came up with a theory about the popularity of the TV show Friends. The one where the last episode aired 10 years ago. I’m a little late to the party sometimes.

I think one reason people like the show is that we’re all a bit like all the six main characters: Chandler, Monica, Ross, Rachel, Joey, and Phoebe.

We’re all a little charmingly awkward at times like Chandler.

We’re all a little anal and obsessive but still lovable like Monica.

We’re all nerdy and neurotic on occasion like Ross.

We’re all hot messes periodically like Rachel.

We’re all goofy and dim-witted every now and then like Joey.

We’re all “throw caution to the wind” spontaneous and free-spirited at times like Phoebe.

I think we relate to each of the characters on the show because we each see a little of all of them in us. Or at least I do.

That’s what good storytelling does. You think, “I’ve done that” or “I’ve been there” or “I’ve felt like that before.”

So that’s my theory. Maybe it works with other good TV shows. Or even other movies. I haven’t gotten that far yet.

Two of my relatives had birthdays this week. My grandmother turned 90 on Tuesday and my niece turned 3 today.

I was 3 once. It seems like a very long time ago, but it happened. I hope I make it to 90. That would be fun.

Most of all, I hope I don’t take a single day for granted and that I appreciate each and every day I wake up to as a gift from God. I hope I can always look for the good and find the minute blessings and small joys in each day.

I hope I can always be a better person today than I was yesterday. A better son, a better friend, and hopefully one day (God willing) a better husband and a better father.

Most of all, I hope that if people remember anything about me, it would have been that they saw Jesus in me and felt His grace through me. Of course if all they remember is the grace of God and not me or my name, that will be okay.

I always tell people that I’m living the dream because life, being alive, is the biggest and best miracle there is. Don’t ever take that for granted.

The end.

“Am I afraid to die? I am every time I let myself be seduced by the noisy voices of my world telling me that my ‘little life’ is all I have and advising me to cling to it with all my might. But when I let these voices move to the background of my life and listen to that small soft voice calling me the Beloved, I know that there is nothing to fear and that dying is the greatest act of love, the act that leads me into the eternal embrace of my God whose love is everlasting” (Henri Nouwen).

I normally do not fixate on death. I’m not like the Woody Allen character in Hannah and Her Sisters who is obsessed with the possibility that he might be dying.

But lately, death has been on my mind a little more than usual. Maybe it’s hearing how Jan Hooks, former Saturday Night Live cast member, passed away recently from an undisclosed illness at age 57.

Not to be morbid, but every one of us will die sooner or later. The question isn’t how we will die but how we will live until that moment comes and God calls us home.

When you live as if this could be your very last day, your priorities change. Suddenly, it’s not so important to be in a hurry or get a lot of things done, but rather to spend time doing what you love and being near those whom you love.

My pastor always says that gold isn’t the currency in heaven. It’s pavement. Love is the currency in heaven.

So how are you investing your love now? Are you making time for those you love? I know I personally have longed to talk with family members who have passed away and imagine the conversations we might have.

Oh yeah, I had a great night. I spent time in Franklin and visited all my favorite places there and took in some not-quite-fallish weather (it was warm enough for me to wear shorts comfortably).

I was thinking about Sunday’s sermon on giving from 2 Corinthians 8:1-7. The Apostle Paul commends the Macedonians for their generosity and notes that even though they themselves were poor, they were literally begging to be able to give to help their brothers and sisters in the faith.

I’ve known people like that. So have you. People who are so generous and have such giving hearts that you want to be just like them. People who fill your heart with joy whenever you’re around them.

Then I thought of The Giving Tree.

Yes, I mean that book by Shel Silverstein.

In case you don’t know the story, it’s about a tree who loves a little boy very much and gives of herself for this little boy. And the boy never gives anything back. He just asks and takes.

At first, you and I think of how selfish that little boy (who eventually grows up) is, but then maybe you’re like me and think, “That’s how I am with God.”

He gives and gives and it seems all I ever do is take. But then again, what do I have to give God that He didn’t give me in the first place? Even my desire to give to Him comes from Him.

I think that true giving is giving back to God what is already His. Like my money. Or my time. Or my talents. Or just me.

God wants us to be generous with those around us as He was generous with us. God wants to reflect His giving heart to those around us where we live, work, and play (to borrow a phrase my church uses often).

God’s working on my heart, making it as open and giving as His own heart. Little by little, He’s transforming me into a more giving, generous person who can one day measure my wealth by what I gave away rather than by what I kept.

All that from a kid’s book.