Restoration- July 1, 2008

I'm sorry to some who will read this. I wasn't ready to make a big deal about when it happened, but I've since been retaught Jesus is always a big deal.

So I had been reading When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight For Joy for a few weeks. Still haven't finished it. But the first few chapters hit me pretty hard. It seemed to describe how I had been doing for awhile now; that is OK, but not great. Piper's thesis is basically "most Christians think the remarks about Joy in the Bible are a suggestion, but they are actually commands." I didn't disagree with what he wrote, I just haven't been able to really live it out for awhile now (months, years I don't know?)

Last weekend was my first Anointed Class college reunion in Wilmore. It was a blast, but Sun. morning was a real blessing! 600-700 alums listened to this evangelist from the N. GA Conference of the UMC (what an oxymoron!) talk about the same topic. He spoke on Acts 1:3 and said "you may have lost it since you left, or you may have never had it when you were here, but God told me to preach this to you today! Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and it is a command that all Christians seek after it." He went on to tell a lot of stories from Wesley's Journal, but that's not important. At the end, there was an altar call (Hughes has one of the biggest altars I've ever seen). We sang this through a 4 verse hymn twice and about 100 folks young and old went forward. Seeing that I hate altars calls (something God told me this morning to get over) I stayed put, but about the time the former First Lady and President of the College walked down I said the most theologically incorrect prayer I have ever said and asked God to restore the Joy I once had. I may have already had it back by that point (because God works through Ale8 and Sonny's BBQ all the time), but after saying that prayer many times recently God finally decided that weekend was the time.

Gradually over the next couple of days I learned many things I need to change. Basically, I need to be more serious about things. Normally, I say prayers and passively wait for God to answer. He told me I need to beg and plead; hence, be more serious and show more desperation. There's more I might say to you in person, but generally the past week has felt like I just returned from a first date with a hot babe I'm really interested in and I'm beside myself because I found out tonight she's head over heels for me, too! Generally speaking, life is amazing. Sin has started to reappear (it seemed to completely vanish for a few days), but now its more like an annoyance I want to go away than something I suffer under.

My courage is back, my laughter, and my smile are back. Which means God's version of me is back! A liberal guess at when Jesus and I were this close last would have to be 2004-2005. Conservatively, maybe 2007?

For some reason yesterday I was thinking about this and came up with the line, "Spiritually Homosexual...I love Jesus!" Maybe a good line for a t-shirt, probably not a line to use describing my religious views on Facebook. ;-) -LOL-

So hopefully next time you see me you'll notice I'm a lot happier, but in order for that to happen I have to get back to my spiritual fight. Brad Pitt once said, "how much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?" So far, I'd have to say I'm lazy...that's got to change. :-)