Category / Life With God

by Greg

Relief

The past week saw a bit of relief for us on the income freeze. I think I have mentioned here that the summer was quite a financial drought. Not many (maybe there weren’t any?) of my current clients needed any substantial work done on their existing sites, and not much new business came in. We haven’t been getting much if any income from my various income streams. (Web design, music, Mac sales… even the Buffalo Bills podcast or various publishing endeavors.) It’s not only been frustrating… has been quite a weight to bear, with unpaid Bills mounting.

But the last week or so has changed that a good bit. Four new clients/jobs. (One paid their deposit, another paid today, and the other is about 80% committed to the new project.) I got a payment from Apple, and a payment from a gig earlier this summer. I even got a royalty check from CCLI, who pays artists when churches report having used their material. Not much, but it was a nice gesture. 🙂

But it all was kicked off by the insane generosity of some friends of ours. Not only did they drive a long way to treat us to lunch – and a good one at that! – they also offered to help us catch up on some of our bills! What??!? I just didn’t even know what to say! It almost seemed unfair to them. Why should they bear our financial burden? But even in my own words I understood that I must accept. “Bear each other’s burdens,” it says. And Acts talks about a church where “no one was in need” because they all took care of each other.

Quite humbled (often we have been the ones on the giving end of this deal) and just floored at the offer, I accepted, and they wrote us a very generous check. We were able to pay a past due debt that was definitely hanging heavily over my head. What an incredible gift.

Add to that generous gifts and help from family, and some other friends who a few weeks earlier had done a very similar thing!! Holy cow. God is not taking care of us through my talents, abilities, skills, or hard work… he’s taking care of us through the relationships he has given us.

That is terribly humbling. In a good “terrible” way. I am so amazingly thankful, and glad to see God is also giving to those who are giving to us. You can tell (and I know from experience) that the giving of this financial help is just as cool (or more) as the receiving is for us. Incredible.

Thank you, friends. Thank you, family. Thanks for loving us, and for letting God provide through you. I hope I get to return the favor – not to feel like I have earned your gift, at least I hope not. But instead, to be able to love you as you have loved us… with lavish generosity. And maybe not you… but someone else God connects us with. There will always be needs. That is for sure.

So, thanks to God for the new work to do, for the future work that seems to be lining up, and mostly for reminding me again of what really matters in life – the people he has surrounded us with.

by Greg

Not Like Us

I was thinking about life this morning, in the shower… as I usually do. Sometimes it’s the mundane “what do I have to do today” kind of stuff, other times it’s “meaning of life” kinda stuff. I suppose it was the latter today.

We’re still in a pretty good pinch financially. We have some temporary relief for the moment thanks to some incredible (and unsolicited) generosity of our friends and family. And for some reason, even when there seems to be a lead (a new client, interest in our trailer for sale, or any other possible income) they seem to fall through. It can be pretty frustrating…

What would cross my mind in years past would be that “God disciplines those he loves.” I would begin to search inside myself to find something about me, or something I was doing or not doing, that might be displeasing to God. That usually did not take very long. So, I would tell God I am sorry for that, and ask him to help me fix it, and I would assume that my repentant heart would curry God’s favor once again. (Meaning, whatever bad thing I was calling God’s discipline would be lifted from me.)

Sometimes that would happen, other times it would not. Certainly could not detect any sort of pattern. The only pattern I could discern was my repeated attempts to work my negative circumstances in life into some form of disciplinary action from my Father with a capital F.

But over the past many years, I have been learning of his grace – unconditional grace – and his way of dealing with us. It’s not do right, get good… do wrong, get bad. At least not always. Not that predictable. The one thing that I can count on is that he loves me. A lot. So many scriptures tell me that. A lot.

Still, we persist in this idea that if something is wrong, God is punishing us. (And sometimes we think the reverse, where good stuff means we must be doing “something right”, but usually we just take the credit ourselves for that.)

Is our sudden lack of income the result of some known or unknown sin in my life? Maybe Jen’s? If I repent of my current failures (of which there are many) will the money start flowing again? I obviously can’t know the answers to those questions, but I think I can see evidence that suggests the results will not be (necessarily) directly tied to my choices or actions in the immediate future. There may be consequences to my poor decisions, mistakes, failures, or general lack of wisdom and discrepancy. But, God does not seem to operate on a “if a = b then c” system.

God almost does the opposite. When the disobedient, unruly, lazy son asked for his share of his father’s inheritance… his dad gave it to him. He knew what his son would do with it, but he still gave it to him. And, he let his son go off and actually do what he knew he was going to do. How many of us could actually knowingly fund our children’s debauchery? And – even more – allow them to really go through with it? I’m not sure I could…

But God is way more patient that we are. God also sees way more of the big picture. He is not doting over every little thing we do wrong or don’t do right. He walks with us, and encourages us toward the good, and away from the bad. If we fail, he is there to pick us up. He’s not there to immediately punish us. He wants us to succeed. (Not in a “success deity” kind of way… in the Kingdom success kinda way. A very backwards way.)

All of this may not make too much sense, but I could see God working this through in my head and heart the other day (when I started this article) and wanted to write it down, and perhaps share it with you. You may think that bad circumstances in your life are God’s direct intervention to “teach you a lesson”! I can not know what he is doing (or not doing) in and for you. But I do know that he is teaching me to trust him. Trust his love, trust his goodness, trust his provision, trust his lead. I have been learning again through a tough financial time – a tough time to trust my Father – just what matters in life. It’s not my stuff. None of it. It’s the relationships he has placed me in. My family, my friends, my neighbors. All I need to do is trust and follow God’s lead (based on what I have learned of him, and seen him do in the past), and love the people whom he has placed around me. Every day there is another chance to learn.

And isn’t that true “discipline”?

by Greg

Mormons, Catholics, Santeras… Oh my!

Catholicism and Santeria

So, the other night I was going through our video podcasts, getting caught up on the ones I hadn’t yet seen. There’s a little blue dot next to the new ones, it’s really cool. (We use FrontRow on our Mac Mini, hooked up to our TV in our living room.) We watch probably 8-10 different ones, including a couple tech-related ones, a NASA podcast, and a couple more from National Geographic.

Well, one of the National Geographic ones was called “Santeria“. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, so I clicked and watched. It was about people in Cuba, celebrating the Feast Day of St. Lazarus. (Or something like that.) It is a Catholic tradition, and in Cuba they go all out. They crawl on their hands and knees (or even bellies) for miles, with pain being a tribute to this “saint”.

The interesting part – and the reason for the little podcast – was a lady who is both Catholic, and a Santera. Santeria is a religion which worships many gods, who they believe correlate exactly with the saints of the Catholic church. So, St. Lazarus day also belongs to Babalu Aye, his “twin” African spirit.

I really don’t intend to put anyone down here, or start an argument at all… I’m really not sure why or how religious feelings go down so deeply, causing things like what Al Qaeda wants to do to “the infidels”, and all the similar events throughout history… but, when I saw this, it just reminded me that all religion is very strange. Even Catholics.

Now, you can say that the strange ones are the Santeras, who “made up” the African spirits that match the Catholic saints. And I know, the saints were at one time just ordinary, historical people. But… at least some Catholics pray to saints, and have these very ritualistic practices on the saints’ special days. It’s really just as religious as the Santeria religion. (Minus the animal sacrifices…) 🙂

Why do most Christians think Mormons are worshipping demons, and have strange religious ceremonies (temple proceedings, baptisms for the dead, etc) when Catholics pray to Mary, various other “saints”, and have very religious rituals that are commonly practiced? There are tons of Catholic dotrines that are way outside of what you read in the Bible, and now the Pope (who himself is “outside of what you read in the Bible”) is saying that Catholics are the only real Christians.

I’m not bashing Catholics. Or Mormons. Or Santeras. (Ok, they’re the strangest of the bunch to me, but…) My point is, religion is so crazy. What is it in us that feels the need to appease a higher power so that life will go well for us. And don’t think I’m giving “mainstream” Christianity a pass, either. There are plenty of “appeasement” rituals there, too.

The whole idea that by doing some ritual, or saying some set of words a certain number of times, or anything like that is so foreign to what Jesus taught and lived. Actually, he ridiculed the religious leaders who tried to make others follow meaningless rituals and religious rites. He just loved people, and wanted them to know that God loves them. Sin hurts us, and Jesus came to defeat sin and death for us, cause we can’t. And he did.

Religion is a feeble attempt at the reality of life with God that Jesus showed us is possible. And is made possible through him. Not some incantations or rituals we do once a year, or more. But life lived everyday in companionship with our Father who loves us, and Jesus our brother, and his Spirit who lives in us and teaches us everything we need to know.

You can keep trying to make God like you, with your religious rituals – no matter how big or small. Or, you can just accept that he does. And that’s that.

[Related reading: He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobsen]

by Greg

Alone

I’m alone today. Grandma & Grandpa took Jen & the kids to the NY State Fair today! I have some new projects I am working on, and a Bills show to record tonight, so I stayed here.

It’s very weird, having no one around. Especially when there are always five other people here. 🙂

Well, it’s been a good time of getting caught up on stuff (except these unfinished blog posts!) and even a cool moment of some unveiling of issues I was (purposely, and not purposely) ignoring. God allowed me to see them, and work through some of that with him. Perhaps that came from the quiet of the day.

I do have much to do, but at the next turn I plan to blast through at least one or two of the unfinished articles here. 🙂

Hope your day goes well, and that you have at least a moment or two of “aloneness” with the one who is always with you.

by Greg

What Belongs To God

Our Bible reading in the mornings has been somewhat sporadic this summer, but hey, we’re still making it through the book of Luke just fine. A nice slow and easy pace. 🙂

Today we got to a familiar story. Jesus was out in public and some “spies” were sent to trip him up in his own words. They asked him, basically, is it right to pay taxes? They knew that was a totally loaded question, and Jesus handled it brilliantly (the story even ends with the guys who were trying to trick him being quite impressed by his answer).

Jesus said, “Who’s picture is on the coin?” They said, “Caesar.” He said, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give God what belongs to him.” For some reason today, those words seemed different. Somehow I saw a connection between the image on the coin, and how that showed it belonged to him, and how we bear the image of God, and Jesus said, “Give to God what belongs to God.” If you apply your SAT logic there, then it would fit that WE are what/who belongs to God.

So the boys and I talked a bit about that. Cute moment was when Alex got the answer right. 🙂 He was soooo thrilled with himself. It was very cute. (It is usually bigger brother Ian who gets all the right answers…) 🙂 Alex said, “We’re made in God’s image!” I said, yeah! Like that coin has Caesar’s image on it, so he can have it… WE have GOD’S image on us… so, he can have us. Every bit of us.

He doesn’t want our money. He wants us.

Good thing, since we don’t have much of the former. 😉

Just a fun way of seeing that story today. We are the image on God’s “coin”. I’ve always wanted to have my picture on money…… 🙂

by Greg

Have a Listen

There's The Steeple... Here's The Church Audiobook PodcastI believe I have mentioned this here before, but with today’s (latest) chapter/episode, I felt it was worth repeating. I am working on creating an audio version of my book, “There’s The Steeple… Here’s The Church“, and have been publishing a chapter at a time via a podcast available at gregshead.net/church as well as iTunes.

Today’s chapter is called “Quantifiable“. It was fun to re-think the stuff I put in that chapter. God’s ways are so not ours… we tend to focus on visible, tangible – quantifiable – results, but that is not how his Kingdom works. He can take 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and feed over 5000 people and end up with 12 baskets of leftovers. Numbers are pretty much irrelevant in his Kingdom.

So, each chapter/episode is about nine or ten minutes long (including the intro/outro) and it’s a cool, different way to re-think some of the stuff you’ve read here (long ago), and just stuff that – at least to me – seems relevant to everyday life with Jesus.

Just thought I’d remind you. Have a listen if you’d like. 🙂

by Greg

You Read My Mind

I feel like I have shared too many times on this here blog how money is tight for us, or just stories of how we could use a bit more cash. I certainly hope they never come across as ungrateful. And definitely not as a ploy to encourage donations or product purchase. (Though you are welcome to browse any of our stores…) 😉 I generally post stories of little or no money here (and what comes of that) because they are encouraging to me, and I hope they are to you.

The last month or two (or three??) business has been incredibly slow, and so as far as I can remember this has been the lowest financially that we have been. Though I completely trust God is taking care of us, and will take care of us – I admit to several (many?) times of being overly burdened by not being able to pay our bills. It definitely takes its toll on me.

Two times recently I was just wondering why God would let us be in this position. Once I was unloading our trailer (so that we can sell it, so that we can pay some bills) and I noticed that we still have a LOT of our Christmas CD. Tons. And I just thought, “Man! These need to be in bookstores, and Christmas stores across the country… not in boxes in our driveway!” So I began making plans to get them to stores, even though my plans to make money never seem to work… 🙁

As I was taking another load of boxes up to my office (their temporary home) I got an email from our old neighbor. Turns out she is taking over the bookstore in town and wanted to know how she would go about purchasing some of our Christmas CDs to sell at her store! Amazing. 🙂 It’s small potatoes compared to what we need, but was an encouragement that God is listening nonetheless.

Then this week I was really feeling the weight of past due bills, and almost zero income, and I said to Jen, “I just don’t know why God is doing this?” It was a moment of definite fatigue and frustration. I was out to run an errand or something. Within seconds I think of me thinking these things, wondering why God was not providing money, a friend called and said he had an envelope with “some green stuff” in it waiting for us at his office. 🙂 I knew again that it was not going to relieve all of the pressure, but again, the timing was really fun – and did lighten my load just a tad.

So, again, I don’t have any idea why God is letting us go through this. He hasn’t told us yet. Perhaps he won’t. But through whatever circumstances, we do know and trust his love for us… and it was nice to see it (even if only an apparently small gesture) in those two recent perfectly timed responses. 🙂

by Greg

Spirit-led Praying

I have trouble with prayer a lot of times. Especially when I call it prayer. I very much enjoy a steady dialogue with God throughout my day, but when it comes to “praying for someone” or even just asking for myself… I’m still not certain how best to do that.

See, it seems to me that many of my asks are from my perspective. I see something a certain way, and have a certain desired outcome, and so, I ask God for that. I don’t think that’s wrong in general, but often I feel under qualified to make such decisions. I mean, why am I asking God for something specific when clearly he knows the best thing for me and/or those around me for whom I am asking, right?

Right.

But does that mean we can’t pray? Certainly not. God asks us to ask him. (I still don’t get that, but he does.) So I continue to ask, and I continue to struggle with the asking.

As I was chatting with a good friend tonight, (who leaves in the morning for a 10-day trip to the Dominican Republic with his entire family, including a one-year-old!) I wanted to let him know we’d be praying for them. But then all of these thoughts came up. I mean, once I start asking for something, I usually find a way out of asking. It’s very strange. But I know there is value in asking God for stuff… so I just began trying to say what I wanted to say in other words.

I told him we’d be thinking of them often. That is very true. We’ll miss them, and I’m sure they’ll come to mind quite often. We do a lot of life together. So, then I said, “…asking God whatever he might put on our hearts as we [think of you].” As I hit return in iChat, I thought, “That’s it. That’s how I want to ask. I want God, Holy Spirit, Jesus… any of them… to tell me what to ask!”

And that was it. That was my answer. That relieves the burden from me. I can not know what they need. I was going to say I would pray for protection, but perhaps that is not the best thing. I was going to pray for a “fruitful” trip, but that word is so subjective there are not two people who would completely agree on how that word is defined. What I really want to do is, as I think of them… I want Spirit to lead me in my askings.

Isn’t that how we should pray? Doesn’t he know all of us best? He is right with all of us who are his Church. He is in our midst, and right with each of us. And, he is building his church, so he knows best what we need to do, and ask for.

Perhaps that was a little piece toward opening up my conversations with God. Not really opening up more words, just opening up the freedom of “praying” for people, as the Spirit leads me to. That’s a crazy phrase, and perhaps some of you reading this just cringed a bit. But, if we really believe that Jesus is building his church, then maybe we need to let him prompt our askings, rather than coming to him with an agenda already planned out.

What if he doesn’t “prompt” me? What if I don’t feel “led” in any specific direction??? Chill out. If I think of something… good. If not, then just relax. Trust that if God wanted me to ask something specific, he would have led me… since he is the one who’s leading. That has been a recurring theme in my life of late. Really trust God to lead. Lead me, lead you, and lead his church.

Of course, since he is so good at leading his church.. I could just be hearing what he wants for me, and not at all what he wants for you. 🙂 So, listen to him… let him lead you where he wants to.

Follow the Leader.

by Greg

Seeker

SeekerI Stumbled Upon a site today that offered a short questionaire about how you “experience the Holy“. It was an interesting question that I seldom ask – certainly not often with that wording. So I took it.

According to the test, I am a “Seeker”. Click on the little canoe to read what that’s all about. Pretty interesting stuff. Here’s a snippet:

[“Seekers”] do not feel the need to accept traditional faith patterns in order to come to a lively trust in God. They do not feel that faith needs to be categorized or institutionalized in order to be real.

If you’re interested, take the test yourself!

by Greg

Where Do You Apply Grace?

Lately due to many different factors, our children have been both extra tired, and definitely extra tiresome. They have been frustrating both Jen and me in various (mostly little) ways. Silly, childish things… but whether they are “just kids” or not, they are still frustrating. And after a build up of lots of small things… they can seem very large, and overwhelming.

Last night after the kids went to bed, when the house was quiet and I was cleaning up from the day, I was thinking of them. Of the kids who had just so frustrated me with their attitudes, their selfishness, their carelessness, their clumsiness. And I didn’t think of any of that. I thought of how much I love each one of them. I thought of how they make me smile. I thought of how sad I was that I ever get harsh with them. (Yes, out of my parental frustration, I have been known to be stern, harsh, strict… whatever you want to call it.)

Kids are great, and they (mostly) only remember the good stuff, too. When morning comes, no one remembers the hardness of the last moments of the day. It’s just another chance at another day of life together. And that’s great!

Grace does not have an expiration dateBut what I was wondering in the quiet was, How do I bring in the grace?

See, one big example from recent times involves my oldest son Ian. “Your oldest???” you ask? Yes, even though we have a one year old, a three year old, and a super-energetic five year old… this story of frustration involves our soon-to-be nine year old! Ian has a track record of spilling things. He has trouble focusing sometimes, and just forgets where his appendages are or where other objects are in relation to his body. It happens a LOT. So, when Ian spilled the vase with the 10th anniversary roses (and plenty of 10th anniversary water in it), and it got all over a bunch of toys that were underneath where they were sitting… I was really angry.

I was angry because we’ve been over this. We’ve told Ian to watch where he is going, what he is doing. We’ve cleaned up too many spills to remember. And, I was extra frustrated because of the timing. This particular time I was feeling very time crunched, and didn’t have room to add ANYTHING else – like a major clean up in aisle seven.

I did not mince words. I was not really “mean”… but I wasn’t nice. I scolded Ian for his carelessness. Then I got mad at his self-pity for feeling like I was telling him he’s “clumsy”. What a crazy cycle! We made it out of that alright, and the rest of the night went OK.

The next day, I found a wet spot on the carpet. It was under the roses – which were WAY up on a tall surface. “Nooo… he couldn’t have…” I thought. I was wrong. When I found Ian, he got the guilty look on his face, and confessed to having once again knocked the flowers over, and he told me he did try to clean it up. I was angry again – mostly incredulous. (If you could see where these flowers were, you’d be right with me on that…) I did not as much scold him this time, mostly just took the opportunity to let him know how unlikely it was that he could actually spill the flower vase from there. And I told him to just let me know when it happens, not let me find out for myself.

But he probably won’t. Because I don’t know how to show him grace. At least not in that area. I mean, we’re past the grace, right? I’ve given him lots of grace… now he needs to learn how to actually be responsible. To change his ways. To NOT spill stuff all the time, making lots more work for Dad, and ruining our stuff. He has to learn that doesn’t he? I have a right to be frustrated… right???

While I certainly can’t dismiss my feelings in these moments – the frustration seems quite understandable – it is almost silly when I pretend those questions above are valid. If I really get grace, then I know that they are not. Grace does not have an expiration date. Grace lasts forever. No matter how many times Ian is clumsy, no matter how many times it’s his fault, no matter how much of our stuff he ruins… I still love him, and his heart – and our relationship – is more important than my stuff, or his being able to not spill stuff.

It may seem like a silly example, but for whatever reason it has been extremely hard for me to extend grace to Ian – whom I love – in that area. I am asking God to show me how and when I can change that, so that Ian can know that he can fail and that won’t affect our relationship. It doesn’t… but I don’t think that I let him know that very well.

So do you have any examples? Any thoughts? How do you parent with grace, and yet sustain the boundaries and guidelines and moral and other instruction that children need? I know that context is supreme, but I’d love to hear your success stories.

Until then, I will continue to look for examples to extend grace to my kids, and in so doing, probably learn a lot about grace extended to me.