Madness, "the shot", and lessons learned

I quickly opened a can a worms via facebook by making a suggestion to fans of Kentucky basketball that they resolve some unhealed wounds, namely "the shot".  If you are unfamiliar with rich history of March Madness and NCAA Tournament, 20 years ago an underdog Kentucky squad battled heart and soul, blood and sweat to take the highly favored Duke University team to overtime.  And then with 3 seconds left Shawn Woods for Kentucky hit a huge bucket to give Kentucky a 1 point lead. This set the stage for "the shot".

Grant Hill in bounds and throws a long football style pass to Christian Laettner, who at the time was considered the best player in college basketball.  Laettner catches the ball at the free throw line, turns, fires and drains the winning shot.  In regard to my friends here in Lexington, I know reliving stings.  You can send your counseling bills to UPS for replaying it over and over during this years tournament.  It's termed March Madness for this very reason.

While I was not intentionally taking a stab at my UK basketball loving friends, I was insensitive to their feelings and for that I apologize.  For me it was Sean Higgins put back with 1 second left in 1989 that shattered my 12 year old heart as my University of Illinois, Flyin' Illini were bounced out of the Final Four by an Underdog Michigan squad coached by an interim Steve Fischer.

Yet there are life lessons here to be extracted.  For me, maybe sensitivity training is needed.  There is still, 20 years later, a hatred for that moment and that individual in the state of Kentucky.  It makes me wonder in bigger picture sense, are there more places in our life where for years we have harbored hurt, unforgiveness and bitterness?  Oftentimes, sports is the stage for drama that unfolds in life played out within the rules of a game. So this makes me ask even myself is there a real life "the shot" in my life?  Is there a someone, a something, an event that at the very mention makes me burn with fire and anger?

While sports are the venue that allow us to express that hate towards and opponent or rival without real consequences, in real life, it is less acceptable to publicly displayed such hatred, so in our hearts it remains.  I love a passage of scripture that says that God throws our iniquities into the sea of forgetfulness.  Our faith is the life long endeavor to become more like Christ, who no longer holds our hurts against us.  We are challenged to do the same, to release those that have harmed us.

The unique thing about holding on to unforgiveness is that the person it hurts the most is the person still holding on to the real life "the shot". So take a look deep down, examine your heart and ask yourself is there someone out there who hurt you and that you are still holding on to?  Is there a real life "the shot" that replays over and over in your life and still stings that you need to find some healing on?  All basketball references aside, there is God that longs to heal your hurts, give you peace and free you from the pain that you hold onto.  His name is Jesus, he loves you and died for you to find healing from your hurts.

The Measure of a Cup of Coffee

In the midst of our last LifeGate staff meeting,  this statement was made "for the first time we went through an entire pot of coffee on Sunday".  Now you have to understand, we have a commercial size, industrial coffee pot.  This baby makes a ridiculous amount of coffee.  So I have some theories on why we are drinking more coffee:

1) It was Daylight savings time and everyone needed a little more Java to get going.  This is a worship leader's secret weapon on this Sunday.

2) Our church has become more "mature" and "mature" people drink coffee, moving away from the Capri Sun pouches. respect the pouch

3) This theory is the one I tend to gravitate toward.  I once heard Len Sweet (church futurist) say that people are just more comfortable with something in their hand.  Here is my belief that LifeGate is becoming more interconnected.  Nothing says comfort to me like a warm cup of Joe in my hand.  My belief is that those that gather on Sundays at LifeGate are connecting to one another over the comfort of coffee.

Now we may never move how much coffee we drink into an official KPI (Key Performance Indicator) category.  But I don't think it tells more than we just need a second pot.  I think it tells of growth on two levels. One we are reaching more people, two those people are reaching each other.  I'll take mine with one cream, two sugars please.

Tuesday Tune (Wednesday edition) Ben Rector

I like to be the guy who is first in discovering and liking a musical act before they have hit it big time, but more times than not find myself more of later adoptor than early.  I must confess again, I first discovered the smooth vocals and driving piano melodies of Ben Rector via Pandora.

Ben Rector, a Nashville based artist, falls in line with the likes of Colbie Calliat, Matt Barnes and Matt Wertz.  Rector has had songs featured on TV shows such as One Tree Hill, Pretty Little Liars, and Modern Family.  Ben is currently tour buddies with my favorite band NEEDTOBREATHE who will make a stop through my current hometown, Lexington, KY in April.

Let me introduce to those of you late on the bus to Ben Rector:

Sticks and Stone and other things that hurt

So as children we were taught this little phrase to retaliate to those that picked on us: "sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words will never hurt."  Here is what happened to most kids that quipped that on the playground 1) they ended up hiding and crying the in the principals office or 2) got hurt with sticks, stones or fists.  At some point in our childhood development, probably pretty early on, we realize that sticks and stones hurt for awhile, but words smart for a long time.  While the pain from a kickball to the face eventually subsides, sometimes the wounds from someone's words last a lifetime.

Last night we sat and challenge the young adults how come to our house to pretty get fed once a week on this principle found in James 3 about controlling our tongues.  One of the resounding walkways from our discussion is that most of us are so unaware of the words we use and how we use them.  I think a lot of us would be astounded if we knew how much damage we did with what we said.

There is one point is the passage where James compares our tongues to deadly poison. While I have never given arsenic to anyone, I did kill some mice that were terrorizing my garage.  They were chewing through everything - garbage cans, kids toys, anything they could find.  They had to be dealt with and try hitting a fleeing mouse with a stick or stone was next to impossible.  So I set out some poison.  The little mice feasting on the blue pellets of the deadly cocktail, soon no more mice.  I wonder how many of us our serving deadly cocktails to those around us.  I wonder if the poison we spread through what we say might leave us with no more friends, no more spouse, no more children, no more co-workers to eat lunch with.

What are we serving others with our words?  Is it kindness, love and grace?  Or is it a deadly poison?

Question: When was a time words did more damage than sticks or stones?

Tuesday's Tune Scotty McCreery

Scotty McCreery

Say what you like about American Idol nowadays, I could really take it or leave it.  But I did get the chance to see Scotty McCreery while on tour with Brad Paisley and The Band Perry.  Scotty gave his usual soulful deep baritone vocal performance that won him American Idol.  In the middle of his set Scotty belted out his current single "The Trouble with Girls".

Okay, so here is why I love this song so much, it might just single handed be the most descriptive lyrics for my teenage years.  The chorus comes to close with this line "the trouble with girls is that nobody likes trouble as much as me."

Brad Paisley @ Rupp Arena

Brad Paisley @ Rupp Arena

Songs I wished he had played:
- Little moments
- Who needs pictures
- When I get where I am going
- Half the dad he didn't have to be

Not a Fan

We are launching out into a new series at LifeGate Church called follower. No, this not challenge to grow our twitter accounts, while we have used it to encourage tweeting in church.  It is a challenge for us to be true followers of Jesus.  Some of the language that has shaken out of this series is the statement that we have to "not just fans but followers".


I understand being a fan.  I have cheered and cried over life's simpler pleasures and treasures, namely athletic teams starting with C and from the Windy City.  But I digress... Being a fan is not difficult especially when times are good.  Being a fan is easy in the world of Charlie Sheen when you are always "WINNING".  But the test is being follower over a fan is if you stick with it once it gets hard.

There was a moment in the ministry of Jesus where he foreshadows the events of the cross with a challenge to fans and followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  The outcome a lot of those who had been following the show - feeding the 5000+, healing blind and sick, raising the dead - suddenly were no longer interested.  As a matter of fact the bible states that they deserted him.

This brings us to the question of our own faith: have we been fairweather fans?  Are we all good with Jesus as long as things are all good?  Or in the difficult moments of faith where God digs deep in us to uproot some things that we have not given over to Him do we keep following the one that tends to the garden of our soul?  It is easy to wear our Team Jesus apparel when life is winning.  But do you proudly clothe yourself in the things of God when everything feels like a loss?

Followers go past being a fan.  Followers respond as the disciples did that day "where else are we going to go?  You have the words of eternal life."  The challenge is to be "not a fan, but a follower."

(Thoughts bootlegged off Pastor Ashley Wilson - LifeGate Church)

Youth Pastor's Unite

Okay, so maybe this is not a revolutionary as I think it is, but right now it is my own personal mantra. We have since left the world of full-time ministry some two years ago to be a part of an exciting adventure of church planting with some friends.  The life sold to me in my undergraduate education preparing me to go into ministry is to work my way up the chain to become some big shot with a comb-over in an office with some title of bishop this or that.

What was never revealed to me is that following God into the great unknown does not as neatly work as the climbing the ladder of ministry success presented in my college classes.  In the real world no one really cares how many kids showed up to your "Big Night" (insert cool and relevant title here) event.  Or even the really important things like how many young people's lives were forever changed by the gospel of Jesus cannot land you a job outside the bubble of the church.

Even the church does not help with this.  As presented so well on facebook lately is all the pictures that tell the story of what others think we do and what is actually done by a pastor, youth pastor, or worship pastor.

We are more than pizza eating, retreat taking, X-box playing, funny storying telling pranksters.  We have real marketable skillls.  A lot of us oversee 10's to 100's of volunteers on a weekly basis.  Some of us organize major events or large scale fundraisers. We plan, organize, and pull off major trips.  We are master communicators to an audience that has the attention span of gnat. We put in looonnnggg hours and then after we get home from that our phone rings with another counseling session that cannot wait.  And we are given responsibility for things of great importance - some else's children.  

So whether you are still battling in the foxholes on the battlefield for students.  Or you are like me a veteran of the battle who has taken on a new war.  You are more than a youth pastor.  You are someone's hero, someone's teacher, a life-changer.  You are capable of great things - even in a place not called the church.  Know that you are more than the label laid on you and that you are an invaluable asset to the place that pays you for your services.

Youth Pastors Unite!

Starting Fresh

Today at LifeGate, we opened the doors to our new location at Veteran Park Elementary, at least in a public grand opening service.  It was a simple reminder of what we are doing.  At the close of the message, my good friend Ashley gave those there the opportunity to make a fresh start with Jesus.  At least 6 hands went up.

How big was the party?  The bible tells us over 1 lost person angels in heaven celebrate, so how big was it today with six lives transformed by God's loving grace.

This runs in perpendicular with the rest of my life.  While our church is starting fresh in a new location, lives today are starting fresh with Jesus, my life seems to continue down the same road.  Still in the same job, despite my best efforts to make a improvement and move up.  Still in the same financial battle of trying to move the needle on youthful decisions of taking on debt.  Still, still and still...at least that is how it feels.

The one thing I do remember from high school geometry class is this: two lines running perpendicular to one another eventually intersect.  What this means is that my road full of stills will eventually collide with God's road of new things.  The prophet Isaiah jotted down these words from God - "see I am doing a new thing, now it springs up. Do you not perceive it?"  My hope is at that intersection of my still and God's new is something unlike I have ever known.  Isaiah goes on to say: "I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."

A lot of us live in the still...still struggling to make ends meet, still fighting and discontent in a marriage, still working the same passionless job.  My hope for you is that road intersects with God's pathway of new.  At that connection is the potential for discovery of fresh start God is preparing for you.

Time for Tebow

While everyone else in the world is putting out their two cents on the Miracle Man Tim Tebow, I thought I would join the party.  I am really not sure where this blog about the QB leading Denver is going to go, but this much I am sure of, there is a 10 year old boy in my house who has found a hero. Now Drew just sees the tough runs, come from behind victories and the overtime 80 yard bomb that sunk the Steelers.

As a parent I see the post-game news conference where Tim comes off awkwardly charming and sincerely genuine, incredibly out spoken about his faith and love for Jesus.  While the half world is taking shots at his arm angle, orthodox throwing style and his lack for being a true QB and the other half argues if there is a place for faith in football and sports in general, I see someone that for my boys is worth watching.  And not just between the lines.

I grew up emulating Ryne Sandberg.  I knew nothing about his character or him as a person.  I just knew he played second base for the Cubs and that is what I wanted to do when I grew up. #23 was the number on my jersey and number in my heart.  I defended him as nearly perfect, the best second basemen the game ever had.  I love that my boys love a winner on the field.  I love more that my boys love a person who is a winner off the field and in life.

Tim Tebow may, but possibly won't win a Super Bowl or an MVP, but he has won over my kids and as a parent that is just fine by me.  Sometimes we need to measure a winner by not only the wins and losses on the field but the man he is off.

So Go Broncos, at least Go Tim.  (Still and always will be a Bears Fan)

Leaving Athens

Today was the first day of the 2012 at least in terms of LifeGate Church.  We have taken residency of Veterans Park Elementary School and looking to be a light into that immediate community.  Tucked in the message of my good friend Ashley Wilson was a statement that was as much a side note as anything, but it stood out like a flashing light blinding my eyes.

Ashley mentioned how the Apostle Paul worked and toiled in Athens to plant a church with very little success and he left Athens for Corinth.  It got me thinking about the Athens in our lives.  Athens is the places that we have labored, toiled, sweat, blood and tears poured out only to find little success.  Funny how Paul never mentions that Athens was a worthless venture, only that his work bore out little success.

Could it be that the Athens in our lives are preparations for the Corinth's to come?  In the sacred text of the good book we find two letters to the church at Corinth.  Those two books are filled with some wonderful praises for that group of saints and some pointed corrections for that same group of saints.  Yet we find no letter to Athens, no further mention of fledgling fellowship.

I have had Athens in my life.  Blood, sweat and tears and little success found.  Although Corinth might have been the 1st Centuries Las Vegas, Paul found success in the hearts and lives of those people.  The lights of the strip of Corinth could be blinding, but Athens has prepared my for what is ahead.  May the days ahead bring great fruit as we leave Athens and move to Corinth.

Skipping Church

For the first Sunday in over a year, I will not be gracing an auditorium, cathedral or sanctuary as we travel home from the feast week called Thanksgiving.  This beckons the inevitable question is skipping church ever healthy? 

So before I get myself in the deep messes of life, let me say, I love church.  It is what I have given my life to.  I believe church is a place of healing, hope, and salvation. But for church-folk like me, is a week away a bad thing?  Now I am missing my Sunday routine, because I am creature of routine, but sometimes being able to step away from the routine re-aligns our vision to why we do what we do. 

Most of us who do "church" can get caught up in doing "church".  One more Sunday of serving, shaking hands, eating pasteries, singing songs and then repeat the next week. We treat our church routine like our daily routine of washing hair.  While vitally important to what we do, it falls simply into the pattern of what we do. Sometimes absence does make the heart grow fonder, or at least more aware of what it is and why it is we do this thing called church.  Church truly is the gathering of God's people, which can be lost in the busyness of the Sunday routine.

So this Sunday I have broke routine.  I will spend my Sunday in a car traveling the roads returning back home with a renewed perspective on why I show up every Sunday to the place called "church".  Church is not what we do, but it is who WE ARE!

Let Thanks Begin

Due to the excess of holiday schedules and time off at my place of employment we are feasting for thanks tomorrow. In reality Thanksgiving is the speed bump from Halloween to Christmas were we are only slowed down by that triptofeeling stuff in turkey. So it got me thinking what on earth am I thankful for.  Here is a list:

*Salvation
*My family
*Matching Socks (nothing worse than a lone sock)
*The invention of electricity
*Sleep (at least in intervals)
*The certainty of uncertainty (at least I am sure of one thing)
*Losing 40 pounds in two years

Giving thanks for the most part is the ability to slow things down, to take a picture of what life really holds.  As a people we move at the speed of sound times the speed of light.  Most often we probably miss all that we have to be thankful for.  So maybe add some more triptofeeling stuff to your diet, take a nap, wipe the drool from corners of your mouth as you wake and realize we have a whole lot to give thanks for.

My Songs

In my life there is a marriage between creative thought and music.  Most likely this started as a young kid while creativity was in abundance and Mtv was brand new and strictly forbidden in my house.  But in my rock 'n roll rebellious ways we would sneak off to watch the top 10 videos to see if Stryper could dethrone the kings Bon Jovi (how could God not like a song titled "Livin' on a Prayer"). So we would ride bikes singing loud about the 4th grade heart-breakers who "gave love a bad name" and how bad we were that we were wanted "Dead or Alive". We wore our denim coats with a wife beater wishing we had hair like down the middle of our backs with poofy bangs.  It was our rocker dreams lived out with drums made out of ice cream buckets. Yes, I am child of the 80's.  C'mon girls - admit your secret Madonna wardrobe you rocked out...

While on more than one occasion I have been told music is not in my future - including 5th grade band teacher, lead guitarist from Third Day, and now Grammy and Dove winning producer Nathan Chapman.  So I am grown enough now to admit I am never going to make it in L.A. or even Nashville, what it does not change is that I have a song.  I love what psalmist David wrote - "sing a new song unto the Lord."  Thank you David for permission to not clap on beat - not on the 2 or 4, but closer to one and three quarter and maybe two and five-eighths.

I think we all have a little Taylor Swift inside of us: the want to take our life experiences and put them to melody. While most of the world does not have the talent to make stories about broken hearts and broken bones into record breaking records, I think there is something freeing in finding the melody of your life.  My songs spill out not in three and half minutes smash hits, but sometime in 40 minute messages to crowds of people.  Sometimes it is in the written randomness of this blog.  But it is my expression.

While somewhere inside me there still the desire to rock out like Jon Bon Jovi - I have accepted that my songs may never make the radio...

Something Important

What I have often found incredibly interesting in life is our measurement of importance.  What for one person might be of great importance (i.e. the Cubs winning a World Series in my lifetime) is more like page 6 news to someone else.  Now I have not thought long and hard about how we scale importance in our individual lives, but without question there is a scale.  And that scale functions as key component in our decision making process.

The things we find important we do, the things not so important get pushed aside.  Now understand, I am King of the land of procrastination and I have ruled over this land for many years.  But even amidst my delaying the inevitable, I still have a sense of necessity to do that thing of importance.  So the question stares me in the face how do we take something that for so many and for so long has ranked low on the scale and make it higher.

As part of a church planting team this seems to be the cyclical discussion much like the chicken and the egg.  Here in Lexington with all the seeming trappings of a Southern city, church attendance has somehow been subtracted out of the Southern hospitable ways.  So what we face is trying to move going to church and being a part of church up the scale of importance.  Church has to surpass some big competition such as sleeping in, Sunday brunch, and every other mounting task that gets placed on the balance of life as important.

As an insider of the ways of church, I realize that going is a critical part of this life we call following Jesus.  I also recognize that it is not the only part of being a Christian, but a small piece to the whole.  But without question, the large group gathering is still in America the place where most will make a decision to follow Christ.

So here is my unthought out gut reaction to the question posed of making church going for un-chruched going folks important.  You are important enough!  Not profound but true.  Most people go to church for the first time because someone they know, like and trust invites them.  Most don't go because they feel a need to be in "church".  Most go because someone important invites them and that raises it up the scale of importance.  If you want to make going to church important for someone that it is unimportant to invest and invite.

A man named Ehud

At LifeGate Church we started as series entitled "Drive-In - Stories of Biblical Proportion" and Pastor Ashley retold the Old Testament story of Ehud.  What makes this story one of those great biblical stories is that Ehud stabs an enormously obese fat king and the fat of the king's belly swallows the sword.  Then all the king's attendants just think that the king is on the "throne" (if you catch my drift) before finding him dead.  It is are really odd and cool story!

Here is my point - Ehud was left handed.  Now in our modern culture this seems like no big deal, but thousands of years ago it was treated like a curse.  Even some fifty years ago, teachers would smack the knuckles of children trying to use their left hand to write.  My kindergarten teacher asked me what hand I threw a ball with I said my right and then proceeded to pick up my pencil with my left.  This was immediately tried to be corrected, but to this day, I write and eat left handed and threw a ball right handed - now you see where the oddities of my brain surface from.

Nevertheless, what everyone else saw as a curse or a handicap in the life Ehud turned out to be the very thing that God used to rescue not just Ehud, but all of Israel.  We all have an Ehud-ness about us.  We all have that thing that seemingly stands in the way of our success.  I have often heard people say that in spite of that thing, they succeeded.  But what if through that one thing everyone else say is a roadblock or a handicap would be the one thing that brought success in your life.  While my head is searching for all these examples of what someone's Ehud-ness might be, it could be anything.  Anything that we or someone else has looked at and said that will be the thing that holds them back. But in reality, it might just be the one thing God chooses to use.

It is the details of this story that I find most interesting.  Ehud had his sword strapped to the inside of his inner right thigh, a place where only a south-paw could draw from.  What if God set you up in such a way that whatever is seemingly your handicap, your obstacle in your life is set up just so only you can use it to win with and not in spite of.  Take it from a fellow lefty!

Firsts and Lasts

The blog has been empty for some time due to life and my laziness.  But in those moments that I have been away there have been some life moments that will never happen again.  In that moment I realized that I was seeing something very special.

During the past three months we took on the roll of typical American parents.  We have three lively and wonderful children.  The two boys consumed our spring and early summer with the grand ole' game of baseball and the four year old princess got her groove on in a dance recital.  It was a season of first's.  First base hits, first dances, first win, first losses.  It was a season of life filled with heart ache and joy.

And at the exact same moment of all these first came the realization of all the lasts.  Raising three kids and calling it quits there (more of them than us created a zone defense rather than man to man) made me realize that these very same moments were lasts.  While there will be other moments in life for firsts, these were the last first base hits, the last first dance recitals.  That coupled together were first and last moments in one, maybe not last for my kids as they will hit again and dance again.  But for me as a parent these were some last firsts.  It made me appreciate that moment in time for my kids and for myself as a parent.

This has caused the awkward realization that with every first of Andrew my oldest, comes the last with Avery my youngest.  There will be a day soon that we have to navigate a first day of middle school and on that same day navigate our last first day of kindergarten.  Each high school experience will end with one's senior year and another's freshman year, until there is just one high schooler left.  The road ahead for us will be filled with the beautiful moments that at the very same moment in time is a first and a last.

Mountains, Valleys, and Places In Between

"Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low" are the words belted out in 60's soul song.  But the truth is there are mountains high and there are valleys low.  And many days we trek through them.  A mountain top is that pinnacle, peak experience of jubilation and joy.  While the valley may be summed up best by the psalm "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" primarily because a valley feels like dying. 

Yet, while we climb mountains to great moments and we fall deep into desolate valleys, the majority of our lives are spent somewhere in between.  Caught between your wedding day and that first big fight are all the days of living.  Smashed between your first day of college and the anxiety of your final finals, is four years of living.  Sandwhiched between a baby's first breath and an old man's last are all the days of the in-between.  While the mountains and the valleys are usually the easiest memories to pull from, don't miss the moments in-between, otherwise you might just missed the majority of life as it happens. 

So many times our focus sets on the big moments - whether big wins or big losses - and we lose sight of all the moments that are found in between ascending and descending hills. It is often the places in-between where we are shaped the moments.  I have found in easier in life to worship on the mountain top in the Moses' moments of God's glory.  In the same I have found prayer easier to come by in the depths of personal hells.  Where we have to tough it out is when life is life.  When life is not throwing a curveball, but giving us our daily dose of the every day.  It is in those moments where instead of being without option and sensing the necessity of going to God, that we have to "chose" who or "what" it is we will worship or pray to. 

The toughest roads are not the climb to the top or the tumble down, oftentimes the terrain that requires the greatest navigation is the road in-between the two!  Keep climbing the mountains, surviving the valleys, and navigating all life's moments in-between!

Tuesday's Tune Warren Barfield

Singer/Songwriter Warren Barfield may not be on the radar of most Christian music fans, but once you have heard Warren you know it!  I met Warren at a youth camp some 11 years ago.  Back then he was driving a beat up Ford Mustang with two guitars, a headset mic and a box of self-recorded cd's. 

Since that point Warren has released three studio albums and traveling with my childhood hero Kirk Cameron promoting healthy and godly marriages. And now Warren is headed back to the studio to cut new music.  But this time he is doing it old school, the Warren Way!  Warren has asked his fans and listeners to make an investment into the project.  For there investment they get something in return -- from a pre-release cd to their name in the liner notes.  He is setting out once again to self record an album cutting out all the red tape of the music industry that as he puts it "gets to pick which songs he records."  Here is a link to the kickstarter project.

Until Warren drops new music, here is the break out hit that was featured in the powerful story-telling movie "FireProof", Love is not a fight.  So Warren if you read my blog -- can't wait for some new school, old school WB music!!  Best of luck on the new project!

When The Tank Is Empty

The most difficult place to be is when you feel like you need to give out but have nothing really to give.  Writers call it writer's block.  Athletes call it a slump.  In the church we call it a "desert".  Suddenly the white space of the document becomes your enemy.  All the sudden the lines of the field or court become intimidating.  And everyday spiritual disciplines such as reading your bible, prayer, even church attendance can feel like daunting tasks.  No matter what the title or category of life it comes from, it is all the same -- unfulfilling.

I have this horrible habit of driving my truck not just until it dings and flashes the miniature orange-lit gas pump on my dash.  No, I push it to the limit of watching the needle dance with the letter E as if it was the Seasame Street letter of the day.  "Today's stall on this 4 lane divided highway is brought to you by the letter E."  Well thanks Elmo, like I needed to hear it from a Muppet!

Sometimes life feels like that gas needle.  We watch the mojo of our life slowly and gradually lessen, knowing all along we need to fill the tank up with what keeps us going.  Writer must continue to read and write, baseball players continue to swing, and followers of Jesus, continue to follow.  While filling my truck is easy, yet incredibly costly, re-filling our tanks in life is not always so.  When I pump 10 gallons into my truck instantaneously the needle climbs up over the 1/2 marker and comfort is restored.  But re-filling our spiritual tank does not always  yield the instantaneous results of a stop at the Shell Station.  Sometimes we pour in bible reading, pour in worship, pour in prayer - yet we still feel out of gas.

So my best advice -- keep going to the station and topping off the tank.  In plain language keep doing the things that keep you fresh both emotionally and spiritually.  The writer James in the bible said it so profoundly simple: "draw near to God and God will draw near to you."  If we are honest with ourselves a spiritual empty tank is simply the feeling that God is distant.  Oddly enough, God promised never to leave us.

When the tank is low frequent the station more often.  My mom tells me that my truck will get better mileage if I keep it filled up.  Maybe life is that way too.  Maybe we are better served when we never get to the point of "E".