Reflections on the Weekend

Not one of the greatest weekends ever, but produced some very interesting mind fodder. Friday, someone hit us while we were driving to work. Nothing major just some body damage, and even then not so serious. The problems were many, 1) I have expired MI tags on my car, 2) Other driver is not licenced Because of these situations the officer graciously let us both off without citing us for our transgressions. I felt quite dumb because I have been putting off getting my car registered and had just been challenged to do so because it honors God when we submit to the authority over us (even if they charge too much for registration.) So now I am in a predicament because there was no police report so no fault was determined and AZ is not a no-fault state when it comes to insurance. So now I have to duke it out w/ the claims dept. of State Farm if I decide to get repairs done. :(

Saturday evening was church per usual but again a challenge for me to chew on. Pastor Eric spoke about the Lord's power and how many people live in knowledge of the Lord and His power but never come to experience it in their lives.. In many ways, and many times I have found myself as the poster child for this message. Part of this is my natural love of learning about things and once I get interested I find out all I can about something. I think with the exception of my sometimes addiction like intensity this isn't inherently bad. I feel like the Lord desires that we should be excited about knowledge and gathering knowledge for the sake of wisdom. Where I have felt this impact me negatively is when I forsake my experience for knowledge. When I find myself like Will from "Good Will Hunting" having extensive knowledge and never being exposed to the things of life. One of the things that I felt specifically was that my knowledge of the things of the Lord were not knowledge of God Himself. It is as if the information I have gathered is the wall that keeps me separated from the experience of God and His powerful Spirit on a regular basis. On occasion, the wall comes down and the experience slips through but sure enough it fades.
In the last 2-3 years the experience of God has become more frequent but not to the place where I am satisfied with my level of connection with God. On the upside I feel that some of the issues that I am continuing to work through and have some experience with here in AZ and with the folks at CCOJ has been stretching me and prompting me to rely on less knowledge and really seek the Lord.
One other thing that was a blessing from church Saturday night was the phrase from the Lords Prayer "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, here, on Earth as it is in Heaven." I have heard many messages preached on the prayer but for some reason lately that phrase has carried weighted meaning. You see when we pray that line, we literally ask God to make the earth like the heavens. We should be expecting that the Kingdom of Light will invade the specific darkness that is being prayed for. The thing that was the newest to me that night was that this is not a "someday Lord, make this like heaven" prayer. This is a "right here and now Lord, bring Heaven to this situation" because God isn't just concerned with what happens to us when we die and he isn't only in the business of redeeming human souls. God is in the process of setting the whole world right and redeeming his entire creation. [To really get a feel for the idea of heaving breaking through would take more space and time than I have for now but Kingdom Theology is some awesome stuff(once again Dallas Willard's "Divine Conspiracy"). ]

Sunday was the Super Bowl among other things. Liz and I "watched" the game (I use watch loosely here) while working around the house and on some other things. We got some unfortunate news throughout the day that I found prompting me to come before God on others' behalf. During the afternoon, our friends Greg and Alicia called from the airport and informed us they were flying back to Illinois to be with Alicia's dad. Her father has been battling a relapse of cancer after 4 years of being in remission and had been fighting off infection during his treatment. Friday night he was in the ICU w/ pneumonia and by Saturday night was not showing much improvement. There was a prayer session for him after church Saturday and the news Sunday was that either he was going to make a turn for the better or a serious turn for the worst and the family should be there in case of the latter. Greg and Alicia have been our closest new friends and this news was disheartening to say the least. Reports today have been about the same as earlier.
Also Sunday our neighbor and friend Jason went to the ER w/ breathing difficulty and dizziness but returned home late Sunday night w/ a clean bill of health. The only information we had is from text msgs. so not much in the way of details.

And some good news on the medical front, Liz had been battling some laryngitis since Thursday and most of the weekend was w/out a voice. During prayer at church on Sat. we prayed that God's will be done in her voice as it is in heaven and by this morning there was almost a full recovery that started right after prayer!! Praise God for being interested in the small things of our lives.