are we gonna keep doing this dance?

i've been circling this thing for a while now... it's been well over a year since my last REAL post. there've been some sporadic insignificant posts here and there, but for the most part i've just used this blog for... actually, i haven't been using this blog for anything.

to be fair, i did warn you at the beginning of all this, that my blogging habits were irregular at best. as i write this i actually doubt that anyone is actually going to read it? probably jeramy because he's UBER into blogs... and maybe sierra because she gets frustrated that i never write. but if i'm being quite honest, i wouldn't be surprised at all, if everyone has abandoned all hope...

but the reason i write tonight is because i think i'm on the precipice of a new blogging season... a lot has happened in the last year, ESPECIALLY the last 6 months, and a lot is going to be happening here in the near future, and i can only surmise that it is God Almighty beckoning me to trust him... isn't He always doing that? calling us, pleading with us to take Him up on what He offers...

and not in a begging / pleading / desperate kind of way as if He needed anything from us... but more like a "I've got everything all figured out even though, to your stupid human brain, it appears daunting and sometimes (read:probably) illogical to trust me, because I know that I'm ridiculous but I can be that way because I'm freakin' God for Chri... MY sake" kind of way.

God is so much more interesting, and so much more like His true self, when we don't think we have everything figured out... when things line up perfectly and make sense, don't we sometimes ascribe God to certain atrributes of a situation, especially when they all fit poetically together like some grand puzzle, and we look at the grand outcome and easily smile and say "that's God..." as if He could be confined to A situation like some good luck genie?

as i write and think about this, i'm lead to believe that He is perhaps more correctly identified in those situations where the bottom has conceivably fallen out. when all of a sudden we're laid-off, or have to take pay cuts. or when we're diagnosed with lupus amid other unexplained ailments and are confined to a hospital room and away from our children. or when our family almost falls apart and when we fight for it, there seems to be no end in sight... or when we're moments away from dying in a hospital.

i believe it's in these moments, should we choose to still acknowledge His grace and mercy, that we are correctly identifying who God is. when he have no choice but to trust Him, and to run full speed into His arms and cling to Him, and fight to be in His presence, it's in those situations that He gets to be the God who He says He is... not who we say He is. He's the God that doesn't say that everything will be peachy and shiny and warm and fuzzy. He's the God who tells us that we will suffer and be persecuted and be sacrifices for Him.

yeah, that doesn't sound appealing, i know.

but in His word He tells us that "in ALL things, that God works for the GOOD of those who love Him, who've been called according to His purpose" (Rom 8:28)

again, it says nothing about smooth sails. what it DOES say is that: in EVERYTHING we do, HE uses those moments to make US better. and that's it. it doesn't say that it'll all be difficult, and it certainly doesn't say that everything will be easy. it just says EVERYTHING will be for our benefit, and it's up to us to look to Him and learn from whatever it is He's showing us...

and He's showing a lot of us something right now... so kudos to you if you're seeing God in those tough situations, and PLEASE keep fighting the good fight. i've certainly missed Him in smaller situations, but please believe i'm feverishly following His gigantic footprints...