BST's Blog

An addition to my blog today--
I should have waited until the day was complete to write. Whatever sense of anticipation I felt this afternoon after writing must have been for a reason. The afternoon seemed ridden with misunderstanding and miscommunication. I had a conversation with someone about McLaren and post-modernity. I won't get into it fully. It wouldn't be helpful. The good news is--it ended well.

I admit my deep struggle in figuring out what we are to be in light of this new age of post-modernity. One thing I promised in beginning this blog was that I would be honest. Honesty includes stupidity since I don't claim to have it all figured out. I just wanted to say that again in case anyone out there joined in mid way! :) I could play this safe and write about things that are nice and neat and that I understand well. Boring! I have written about my own personal struggles at the risk of sounding ridiculous or even judgmental. I just want to reiterate that I believe--even though I am a "professional minister" that I am also a work in progress. I hope to never have the attitude that I have arrived. To me, that seems like certain death. What that means in practical terms is that sometimes there are things that I wrestle with that cause growth in me. The answer may seem obvious to others, but it's necessary for me to go through the wrestling in order to have clearer understanding. Some of those things are what I want to write about here. For instance, my curiosity about the way people respond to the message of resurrection might have seemed like I was saying that unless you turn cartwheels down the aisles, you weren't responding in a spiritual way. What I was actually trying to do was think through how we are conditioned by surroundings, our backgrounds, and personalities in the way we approach even the message of Christ. It's a curious thing to me--no positive or negative assigned there. But, I can imagine that my perplexing thoughts can often come off as judgmental. I really hate that. However, to spend any more time in explanation here would result in redundancy. I just wanted to say again that I write this blog as one who is a flawed individual who just happened to be called into ministry. I will probably say things along the way that don't make much sense. It's like all of us along the journey--sometimes we just have to take time to work things out.

Thank you for walking with me on this journey. I welcome your feedback and have been really encouraged by many of your letters. Please forgive me if I have come across in a judgmental way at any point. The truth is...and I did promise to try and be honest... there might be times when I am judgmental. There will be times when I am dead wrong. There will be times when I will feel faithless, cynical, and hopeless. There will be other times when I might seem a little too "susie sunshine". I just want to write about the journey I find myself on and hopefully, in some weird way, maybe it will be encouraging. (even if it's that you think--whew! At least I'm not that crazy!)

Very heavy day of thought. Not every day is like this, but I can't help but feel like these are important times, formative days. I don't want to miss anything the Lord has for me to learn--no matter how difficult it is to get my mind around. Tonight, I got to lay on the floor tickling and laughing with my girls. At one point we were all laughing so hard we had to catch our breath. Out of all the things I am involved in, sometimes it seems that in those moments I see Jesus the most clearly and feel His joy for me (us). I am so thankful to be His child!