chasing toys

About 2 feet to the shoulder, 80 pounds, typical black lab build but with a deeper chest and the face of a German Shepard. Oh yeah, he has ADD. Make that ADHD, with an emphasis on the H. That is Jessie. He is my Uncle Sean’s dog and he is fantastic. He lives for one thing and one thing only. The toy. Toy=life for Jessie. It is that simple. For now toy is a rubber bone, round on both ends with studs on the center part. If you throw it right it tumbles across the yard, which causes Jessie to kick it into another gear and accelerate even faster. When he gets his toy, he gladly returns to whoever threw it and waits at their side until it is thrown again. He will chase the toy until he has no more energy to give and has to lie down in the middle of the grass until he can go again. The point is really simple. Toy is life. One goal, one aspiration, one driving force. Get the toy. I think more often than not we are the same way, myself included.

You see it every day; the career man ignoring his family for work, the student who never leaves school because she has to be just a little bit smarter and more prepared, the kid throwing a temper tantrum in the grocery store aisle because dad won’t buy him that box of Super Duper Sugar Bomb breakfast cereal. Each person is focused solely on the one goal in front of them, forsaking all other things to get to their “toy”. It leads to frustration, exhaustion, being fed up with life. But what of the one “toy” that we are supposed to chase with everything we have. In Jessie’s pursuit of his toy, there is a beautiful picture of what a life lived with and for Christ is supposed to look like.

We are to pursue Christ with everything we have, until we can run no more, then get up and keep chasing after Him. God doesn’t care about our “toys” or how hard we work to get them. Yes, he wants us to be happy but what He really wants is someone who will live their life trying to be more like Christ everyday. It is not that the pursuit of Christ-ness means we won’t be happy. Not at all. It means that our definition of happiness and contentment will change to fit what Jesus has for us. He will make his “”toys” (his passions and desires) our “toys”, so we will want to chase after the same things He does. That is how we become like Christ. We desire to see “His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What toy are you chasing?

Clutter

Clutter besieges me. It is all around me. In my room. My mind. My heart. The room I can clean. My mind I can bring into moments of focus, but not for long. My heart is another matter. Have I strayed that far from God. I feel as though my heart and spirit is tie-dyed. So many things swirling around that no one color is discernable. And not a pretty tie-dye. One of pale browns, greens, mustards. It all just mixes and convolutes into this strange quagmire that cannot be easily defined. Such is the substance of my being right now. I cannot make out all that is going on in me. I beg for change in my life yet the things that need changing are like the colors, I just can’t make them out. No matter how hard I look or how hard I try, it remains out of focus. The clutter is discouraging. So much is circling through my mind and heart, it makes even writing difficult. There are words I want to get out, thoughts and feelings I want to express but they just get tangled in the undergrowth that is my heart and mind. And it seems I can’t find a machete to hack my way through. Maybe a more delicate, careful navigation through the scrub is required. Moving slowly, deliberately. Working through one bush, one tree, one tangle at a time; so as not to become overwhelmed by the scope of the journey. I have planted some of this, ok much of this, underbrush my self and now I must be the one to clear it out. Not completely alone, but they are issues I must face and deal with. So, in I go.

Rhythm

“1,2,3,4…1,2,3,4…1,2,3,4” I think to myself. The little screen in front of my reads 84 RPM. My mind and legs settle on that cadence…1,2,3,4,…1,2,3,4…1,2,3,4. My mind and body are now fixed on this count, this rhythm. It is cathartic. In this rhythm all seems right. There is no work, no school, no sickness, nothing but the road and the rhythm of the pedals. I feel as though I could do this forever. Of course my legs don’t agree with my mind on that point yet, but they will. Sometimes life seems as if its rhythm is like the dancing flame of a fire. No pattern, no predictability, nothing to help anticipate its next move. I can find rhythm on my bike fairly easily, yet more often than not that same rhythm escapes me in most every other aspect of life. I like rhythm. On my bike a good rhythm keeps me going for a long distance. It allows me tackle hills and descents, flats and turns. Yet part of me thinks that were I to find a good rhythm in life (whatever that actually means) then my life would be useless for the sake of Christ.

Does God really want someone who knows what each day, week, month, year will bring? Certainly not! He wants us to be ready to do His hearts desires and follow after Him. More often than not, at least in my experiences, that means a disruption to my regularly scheduled life. I like knowing that Monday is guys group, Tuesday is Dann’s etc., etc. That schedule, especially Tuesday nights, helps to keep me sane and moving forward in life. But I also know that to be most useful to the Kingdom I must be…flexible. The more I think about it the more I believe that there is a rhythm to being a follower of Jesus. It is not the usual rhythm of the same predictable thing time in and time out. It is a rhythm of growing closer to God, working on that relationship. I can’t say with any certainty what tomorrow will hold. But I can say with absolute certainty that God does and I will do my best to have my relationship with Him be one that is open to follow His leading. The rhythm comes in my spiritual walk. Developing some life skills that I put into practice on a regular basis that grow me closer to Christ. Things like prayer, quiet times, fellowship with other believers, reading the Bible. If I can make these things a part my life’s rhythm then I am on the right track. That is the rhythm that will get me up the steep climbs and through the long rides. Not a set schedule of things I do, but a life of regularly and consistently chasing after God and the Son. That is the rhythm of life as it should be.