flying

i have a couple of thoughts rolling around in my head after church yesterday. i sang at bay marin again, which is always a fun experience. great church, great folks, great vision.

a gentleman called avery badenhop shared about his experiences as a person who jumps off high things for a living. not my cup of tea, but whatever. he made the point that we all have something we were created to do and that "God loves it when we fly."

i totally dug that idea because i'm in such a great place right now in a lot of ways but in a difficult place in others. i have such a great future ahead - a big project that will hopefully be funded by a grant that will allow me some great experiences. a burgeoning relationship with a non-profit that will allow me to do some things i've been wanting to do in africa. relationships with churches that will most likely lead to a huge social justice-oriented event joining together churches in marin. a lot going on, all of it great, and yet i'm still feeling some angry, vengeful things. i know that there's no logic to that, but it is the reality right now.

so, i've decided that i'm going to live in this place. rather than judge my feelings or try to run from them, or reason them away, i'm living with them. i've asked God to sit with me in them and help me learn from them, and it's really helping. i don't feel alone or that i'm struggling. it's helping me to fly, even though i've got some extra cargo at the moment.

we all have these things that God has given us to do and when it comes down to it, it's a humbling thing that God would ask us to do anything, but he does and it's pretty cool. i recently heard someone say that God's job is not to make us happy and give in to what we want, but to father us to maturity. i think that one of the ways he does that for us is to give us jobs that we think we can't always do, but then he gives us the tools to do them and then makes things happen that we would never expect. it's a pretty good arrangement, even if it doesn't always go smoothly.

go read 1 Chronicles 17