Admit it; you're a mist.

What took so long?

As you might well gather from the date of my last post; it's been a bit too long since my last journal.  I expect that no one will hold this against me, for too long.

I'm nothing short of shocked at what God has done over the past month.  Things that I would have never expected.  And even a few things that I have been expecting and perhaps dreaded, have begun.

So with all that in mind, I digress.

Perfection; an idol?

It's been running through my mind, often, what one of the pastors was kind enough to remind me of: Perfection is just an Idol.  

Perfection in things like work, and planning, and in the things we want and do in life.  It often becomes something so desired, that the actual goal of the task is lost.  Like for me and my job; doing a perfect job on tech things for a worship service.

I've learned this far too much over the past few weeks.  Given the craziness of the past month, I have had less involvement in the small details of my job.  I have been in the business of trying to get the most amount of work done, as possible, while not always being present when things are going on.  And it's tough because I have this already pictured notion of what I would do, and I have the nerve to call that 'perfect'.  When in reality, I'm nothing close to perfect (Isn't God the only perfect thing!) and neither is my vision for how things should go.

So, its come to me that in ministry, and in life too, there's never a perfect day.

And what I mean by that is this: Heaven, will be where the work of our hands will reflect the perfect God.  Only then will we see the fruit of our hands and consider them perfect.  until then, its just a idol that we worship.

It is something our culture tells us that we need.  that we can achieve.  and that will give us joy.  but its wrong.  and misguided.  and i'm guilty of falling into its trap.

New Stuff.

New Lappy.  - Her name is Lumen and she is a 15" Macbook Pro.  And she is going to come to school with me this semester.  I'm so blessed!  :-)

New Desk.  - Despite my occasional laments, that the location of my desk leaves something lacking, I'm happy to have a home in the office.  It will be a place that I can pop some headphones on and work on my homework.

New school.  - And that homework will be from Talbot, as I work on my M.Div.  I'm finding out in a week or two how many of my undergrad courses transfered up to grad level.  From the conversations that I've had, I'm guessing somewhere in the 20-30 units range.  which coming out of a 96 unit degree.... is welcomed news.  I'd like to become a pastor some day, and I'm not wanting to spend the rest of my life in school... :-P

New chair  - seriously, how many people get excited over a new desk chair.  that's just odd.  but seriously, this one is sooooo comfy.

China?

How many people say that their dad is working in China?

Guess, if there's a club, then I'm in it.  Just this past week my dad moved away to China.  SanMen, China to be precise.  It is on the outskirts of Shanghi.

Either way, he moved out there for a better paying job.  I expect the next time I will see him will probably be in about 4 months.  weird.

I dropped him off at LAX this past Friday, and then headed up to Revival 08, to clean it all up.  What a strange feeling to drop someone off at the airport and know that you wouldn't see them for that long, when before you saw them everyday.

Revival 08'

(footnote, Revival 08 was the name of our H.S. and Jr. High's summer retreat/camp.  it was at Lake Isabella)

Set up.  Oh man, I've had fun on roadtrips before.  and I love driving.  so don't get me wrong.  But driving up on Friday afternoon to get gear up to the campsite, for the first day on sunday, was chaos.  I drove seriously upward of 400 miles in one day.  And the first 200 took nearly 6 hours, because of LA traffic.  oh man, that was miserable.  But on the upside, I got the gear up there safely.  which normally isn't much of a shocking statement.  but considering that the tailgate fell down on my truck while i drove nearly 200mi of 204 of those miles, its a shocking statement that the gear all made it up safe.  I mean, its clear that God protected and kept the thousands of dollars of gear safe, despite the tailgate of my truck not working.  How awesome is God?

High School week.  - I went up as a counselor.  But before you think I'm crazy about that, consider this.  The first day of camp (Sunday) I woke up with food poising and was 'kneeling before the porcelain throne',  if you follow.  So I was making calls to the pastors telling them, i was crawling myself into work, because I had to work the 9am and 11am service and then after those were over I was going to call them and let them know if I could stand up without feeling like I needed to puke again.  Seriously; the 9am service, I was leaning on the desk in the back, just to support my weight, because I otherwise could not do it on my own.  I'm bitter at Chipotle for that burrito that made me sick.  Negative points to Chipotle for making a iffy carnitas burrito with extra hot sauce.  I think Chipotle earns its self a time-out, and a 'eric is not going to visit you for a good amount of time' card.

Tear down.  - seriously, i just spent upward of two hours cleaning off dirt from audio gear.  And I'm not even half way done.  I'm going to be cleaning up this mess for far too long.  But on the flip-side of all that, it sounds like at least 30 or 40 kids repented and put their faith in Christ during those two weeks of camp.  So, in the end, a bit of dust is worth some souls out of eternal judgement, ya?

You're a Mist

I've been reading Francis Chan's book called 'Crazy Love'.  And I just finished a chapter that got my mind boiling with thoughts.  I was excited and yet a bit disturbed.

I guess the chapter title is relevant "You might not finish this chapter".

Chan talked about how odd it would be for us to do the following: 

-To act like we got a role in a movie, as an extra, in one scene of that movie.  And then upon hearing about the movie being released in theaters, to proceed to rent out a entire movie theater.  And then we would fill the entire movie theater with all of our friends and people that we wanted to impress.

-Then upon our scene, when we're practically a dot in the background, to interrupt the movie and claim our fame, and draw praise upon ourselves for being in the backdrop of some small scene.

And from all of that Chan was trying to remind us that in the 'movie' of the Bible, we're nothing huge.  We're not the main character.  We're far from it.  We're practically backgroud characters.  Sometimes there are people that draw exceptional fame, and take up the screen for a little bit longer.  Like Moses and Abraham, and the like.

But Let's be honest with ourself, the real climax of life here on earth, and people in general was Christ.  And it will stay that way.  And the real 'main actor' that could draw people into the movie theater and get warranted praise, is not a person, but rather God.

So we're silly to say that our lives, which scripture describes as a "mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" [ja 4:14], are really all that 'big'.

we're small characters in somebody else's movie.

And I cant help how that puts my life in a different perspective.  I mean, part of me is sad that I have friends moving away to the east coast to go to seminary, and still other friends moving on in life.  Part of me is sad, that I know friends who have had loved ones die recently.  Part of me is bummed out that life doesn't always work out the way I planned it when I was in college.

But really now.

I'm a mist, a small character in God's movie.

So, If I really wanted to do something, I should do all that I do, to draw attention to Him.  And if that means I have to stay where I'm at for right now, then so be it.  I will be submissive to what God wants me to do.  He's the director.  And he's got a plan.

      a good one