Seasons

Back in January of this year I was asked to submit an article for the newspaper's "religion" section. I thought I would share it on my blog.

SEASONS

The other morning I was sitting at my kitchen table doing my usual morning routine (coffee, Bible, etc.) when all of a sudden, something outside caught my eye. I looked out into the heavy snowfall and saw a flock of blackbirds roosted in my neighbors trees. They rested for a while, only to take flight again. I thought: “Just two days ago my friends were thinking about going golfing. Now we’re pulling out our shovels instead of golf clubs.” Welcome to seasons in Wyoming.

Randomly I began thinking about San Diego. I’ve been there a few times and have loved it each time. I wasn’t wishing I were there, or booking a flight to leave. It was more like, “Would I enjoy living there?” Being a Wyoming native I think there would be some adjustment to the mass amount of humanity, traffic and cultural differences. But the thought that really stuck in my head was “seasons”. Does San Diego experience four seasons? One? I don’t know. I just know it’s been really nice each time I’ve been there, even at different times of the year. Would I miss the change of seasons? Would I miss the snow? I think I would miss having all four seasons.

What about “seasons” of life? What season am I in right now? What about you? Am I like that dormant tree in my neighbor’s yard where those blackbirds roosted, just waiting out this season? Waiting for brighter days? I don’t think humans are designed that way. Yes, we ARE designed for periods of rest. Maybe even for a “season” of rest. We are NOT however designed to be dormant. We are designed to grow…to be ALIVE!

Recently I was reminded of a season in my life. In 1982, I was a Senior in high school and on the varsity basketball team for Lovell, WY heading to the state tournament. When we first rolled into town, we had an early morning practice at some random gym. All these years later, I had no clue where that gym was. I didn’t really give it much thought. That was until last week. Some friends and I were in Laramie on a business outing. One of the places we landed that day was the Civic Center. It was cool. I love historic buildings. We walked into the gymnasium and BOOM it hit me “This is it. This is that very same gym where we practiced at in 1982.”

I couldn’t help but relive some of the memories. Good memories, and bad ones. I loved basketball, and still do. It was a childhood dream of mine to play high school ball. In that “season” of life I was living my dream. I was on varsity, and we are at the State Tournament. Life is good, right? But something was missing. Why did I feel empty? Why, if I was living a childhood dream, did I feel like there was more? Why did my life feel like that dark, cold and dingy gym?

So, there I was all these years later. Same funky wood floor, bleachers, hoops and even the same tattered padding behind the hoops. It was the same old gym but something was VERY different. ME! My life is no longer empty.
So I left that gym rejoicing. Thanking God for what he showed me while I was there, and praising Him that I no longer feel dormant but ALIVE. Alive in Christ! My life now has purpose no matter what season I find myself in. What about you?

Ascent Conference

Man this conference has been SO good. It has been three years since I have been to anything like this. I have been impressed. There is much I could write about. So much good stuff.

The one thing I feel led to try to unpack right now though is this one truth (amongst the many truths/challenges) that Pastor Boyd shared. I'm not even sure which session it was. Doesn't matter.

His challenge went something like this:
"You have to learn to be a good son before you can learn to be a good father."
When he said that, my heart both leaped and hurt at the same time. I think he's right on. My first thoughts naturally went to my relationship (or lack of) with my own Dad. It was not good. It wasn't violent or anything like that. Just more of the "two ships that pass in the night" and never speak to each other about things that really matter, kind of thing. He was always there but never there, if that makes sense. And YES it mattered. And I did not know how to be a good son. I wasn't horrible just not good. I did not know how to be a good son or father. So....when I took that to pain to God, it mattered. But guess what, My Heavenly Father has healed me. I have shared with very few people exactly how that conversation with God went. Just trust me, He took the pain away and taught me how to be a "son". And then HE taught me how to be a father to my boys. And HE can do the same for you, if you'll just let Him.


And then I thought about my two boys. "Have I been a good Dad"? I like to think so. Perfect? NO! But, doing the best I can, with God's help and with the help of my awesome wife? I hope so.

It has SO blessed my heart this week to see my son Morgan (which, by the way, was sitting in the same room as me when those words of challenge were spoken by Brady). To see the man he is becoming blesses my heart. And to see how much the other students look up to him--and not just because he's tall. He is definitely one of the leaders of his class. SO cool!

I can't wait to have my other son ,Nathan, down here next month at Desperation Conference. It's going to ROCK! I couldn't be more proud of him also. I am blessed.

Have there been tough conversations with each of them? Absolutely! Worth it? Yes.

Has God had tough conversations with me? ABSOLUTELY! Worth it? You better believe it.

Why does God discipline his children? Because He LOVES us!

Crazy Love

I was asked by several questions by people on Sunday about video-sermon we showed. The questions revolved around getting a copy of the sermon, the name of the book , etc.

So I thought I would use my first blog in a while to answer some of those and of course to shamelessly plug my Life Group.

The sermon we showed from Francis Chan will be available on our site very soon. Or you can go to the "One Prayer" site and check it out there. Hey, if a techy-challenged dude like me can find it on there , you can too.

The book he has out is called "Crazy Love". It is a GREAT read. So good!

I start this Wednesday taking my Life Group through it. So excited. I have read the book once and will read it again as our group walks through it. I am looking forward to getting other people's insights to the truths and challenges in the book. There is a DVD based study that coincides with each chapter. So if you want to join, let me know. Or if you can't join but want to read the book and have a follow along guide, there are some great resources available at 'crazylovebook.com'. I also heard that on one of the 'book selling sites' you can read the first chapter for free.

Anyway, I can't wait to go through this study. And would love to hear your comments. I had a guy tell me last night " So ya , I stopped and and bought the book for my son and started to read it and could NOT put it down. Two hours later, I still couldn't put it down!" So cool. Yup it'll do that to you.

Pumped!
Grant