I pray they've always been special in some way, though I know that's a bit presumptive.
So, I go back, back, back. To the first one, on the seventh of November, 2009. It read:
Life, I believe, comes at us in seasons. Nothing is stagnant. Change is a part of all we are, all we do. Nothing stays the same. What happened in winter doesn’t last till fall.
There’s a song on the radio as I write this that has a line something like this: The batter swings and the summer flies.
Sure seems that is the way it happened. One day I sat down in the rocker on my porch and the next, the winds were blowing cold and it was almost time to take the rocker in for the dead of winter.
It seems that it was really just a day or so ago that I was young enough to swing a bat and run like the wind. A slow wind, admittedly. The joints were flexible.
Summer was fun.
Seasons change.
The summer flies.
And I’m here. Looking back.
God is there through the seasons. There’s the freshness of spring where God works to help us understand our newness in him, where the rains are sweet and we don’t mind being damp one bit.
There’s the white-hot excitement of summer where God leads us into territory with Him we never knew or dreamed of. We long for the mercy that comes with each morning. We long to grow. We want to know him, and we don’t know how to pull that off.
There’s the peace of fall, where the wind is gentle and the air is light. There is no peace, no love like God’s. We begin to understand what the relationship with Jesus really means. How do we live with daily contact with a savior who we can’t see or feel? How do we live with a relationship with the unseen?
And there is the winter of bleakness, where we struggle with death and loss, where things aren’t what we thought they would be, where that relationship we so longed for simply can’t be found.
Each step of the way, there is God. God in the days. God in the nights. God with us in our loneliness. God with us in our joys.
His footprints are easy to see, but more often than not, we see them after we’ve walked through the season.
This blog is my effort to look at all the seasons through which I’ve, those around me have passed through, in the past few years. It covers all seasons, and I suggest that it covers all persons. I will be blogging five days a week as I move from the season of the Times-Picayune (New Orleans newspaper) to the season of full-time ministry.
Sure seems that is the way it happened. One day I sat down in the rocker on my porch and the next, the winds were blowing cold and it was almost time to take the rocker in for the dead of winter.
It seems that it was really just a day or so ago that I was young enough to swing a bat and run like the wind. A slow wind, admittedly. The joints were flexible.
Summer was fun.
Seasons change.
The summer flies.
And I’m here. Looking back.
God is there through the seasons. There’s the freshness of spring where God works to help us understand our newness in him, where the rains are sweet and we don’t mind being damp one bit.
There’s the white-hot excitement of summer where God leads us into territory with Him we never knew or dreamed of. We long for the mercy that comes with each morning. We long to grow. We want to know him, and we don’t know how to pull that off.
There’s the peace of fall, where the wind is gentle and the air is light. There is no peace, no love like God’s. We begin to understand what the relationship with Jesus really means. How do we live with daily contact with a savior who we can’t see or feel? How do we live with a relationship with the unseen?
And there is the winter of bleakness, where we struggle with death and loss, where things aren’t what we thought they would be, where that relationship we so longed for simply can’t be found.
Each step of the way, there is God. God in the days. God in the nights. God with us in our loneliness. God with us in our joys.
His footprints are easy to see, but more often than not, we see them after we’ve walked through the season.
This blog is my effort to look at all the seasons through which I’ve, those around me have passed through, in the past few years. It covers all seasons, and I suggest that it covers all persons. I will be blogging five days a week as I move from the season of the Times-Picayune (New Orleans newspaper) to the season of full-time ministry.
Perhaps you can find yourself in the stories, in the line at Burger King, buying a new car, having kids, grand kids. Perhaps you’ll laugh. Perhaps you’ll find insight.
Not everyone has my background, my problems, my worries, my woes. Not everyone has gone through the pain of alcoholism, lived through Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, lost love ones to cancer.
But everyone has someone or been someone who has had some problem like those in a dark time and come screaming into the sunshine of joy on the other side.
Somewhere in the balancing of the pain of life and the love of God is where we live, not as stained glass portraits but as flesh-and-blood it’s happening to me today God people.
On the porch, rocking away, watching the summer fly by.
Let me introduce you to the seasons I’ve experienced. Perhaps you’re in there with me. I suspect you are. Maybe you will laugh. Maybe you’ll recognize God in ways you never dreamed. Maybe you will recognize yourself.
Read them daily if you will, the way seasons are felt, absorbed, lived.
Feel the joy of the Lord, the dryness of a desert, or the warmth of a winter fire as I did when I wrote them over the years.
Nine hundred ninety nine blogs have followed, mostly Monday through Friday. We've explored whole books of the Bible. We've explored one or two line passages, lifting entire morality plays out of a word or two in scripture, and we've explored today's headlines. Together.
I've lost two great pet friends, moved from one charge (one or more churches strung together and served by one pastor) to another, this time with three churches. I've moved from a home we were buying, to our first parsonage to our second. I've seen and commented on the New Orleans Saints winning a Super Bowl and the New Orleans Saints being involved in one of the biggest scandals in NFL history, Bountygate it was called.
The blog have become a bit more famous, a bit more read, and even have become fodder for a Sunday column that is now in two newspapers in the Acadia portion of Louisiana.
Mary and I have been to Israel, and we're trying desperately enough to gather enough money to make a second trip (donations are certainly accepted).
Our grand-children have grown; our number of pet rescues have, as well.
What has passed, mostly, is time.
I've set no goals on the number of page views or number of blogs written or whatever. I've had more than 25,000 page views in these four years and/or 1,000 blogs. Somewhere in the vicinity of 50 hits per day generally has been the norm. Some days were much bigger, like when I called for New Orleans Saints football coach Sean Payton to come clean about his role in Bountygate. Some were much, much smaller as when I taught from the book of Nehemiah about leadership.
A high of 241 hits to a low of about 20, the days ranged.
But not for a moment did God ever forsake me. Through 1,000 blogs, God was constant, even when I was not. He was holy each morning, righteous each evening, whether I was blogging from the woods or from the beach, blogging from a joyful existence or blogging from a pained one, pondering from Israel's mountains to Florida's sands.
For a 1,000 miles of wordy expression, God was only good, was only sovereign, was only God -- trustworthy, forgiving, forgetting -- walking each step with a stumbling, sinful fool alongside.
Even when it was hard, maybe especially when it was hard, God comforted, loved, held on to, willed me into submission as if I was a training pup.
Till we arrived here, together. One thousand strong (and occasionally weak), I believe this has been the quest, to go together into the unknown where we most often find God.
The scriptures say Job (beaten and beaten up, worn and worn out, wanting and wanted) listened to God say, "Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God's critic, but do you have the answers?"
Job squared his shoulders, looked into the heavens, into the throne room, into the arms of God himself and responded, "I am nothing -- how could I ever find the answers? I will cover my mouth with my hand. I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say."
God said to Job, "Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them...ARE YOU AS STRONG AS GOD? Can you thunder with a voice like this? Al right, put on your glory and splendor, you honor and majesty."
Job answered these and many other questions from the Lord. "You asked, 'Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance...You said, 'Listen and I will speak. I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.' I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes."
The batter swings and the summer flies.
Till the next 1,000 or so.
Not everyone has my background, my problems, my worries, my woes. Not everyone has gone through the pain of alcoholism, lived through Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, lost love ones to cancer.
But everyone has someone or been someone who has had some problem like those in a dark time and come screaming into the sunshine of joy on the other side.
Somewhere in the balancing of the pain of life and the love of God is where we live, not as stained glass portraits but as flesh-and-blood it’s happening to me today God people.
On the porch, rocking away, watching the summer fly by.
Let me introduce you to the seasons I’ve experienced. Perhaps you’re in there with me. I suspect you are. Maybe you will laugh. Maybe you’ll recognize God in ways you never dreamed. Maybe you will recognize yourself.
Read them daily if you will, the way seasons are felt, absorbed, lived.
Feel the joy of the Lord, the dryness of a desert, or the warmth of a winter fire as I did when I wrote them over the years.
Nine hundred ninety nine blogs have followed, mostly Monday through Friday. We've explored whole books of the Bible. We've explored one or two line passages, lifting entire morality plays out of a word or two in scripture, and we've explored today's headlines. Together.
I've lost two great pet friends, moved from one charge (one or more churches strung together and served by one pastor) to another, this time with three churches. I've moved from a home we were buying, to our first parsonage to our second. I've seen and commented on the New Orleans Saints winning a Super Bowl and the New Orleans Saints being involved in one of the biggest scandals in NFL history, Bountygate it was called.
The blog have become a bit more famous, a bit more read, and even have become fodder for a Sunday column that is now in two newspapers in the Acadia portion of Louisiana.
Mary and I have been to Israel, and we're trying desperately enough to gather enough money to make a second trip (donations are certainly accepted).
Our grand-children have grown; our number of pet rescues have, as well.
What has passed, mostly, is time.
I've set no goals on the number of page views or number of blogs written or whatever. I've had more than 25,000 page views in these four years and/or 1,000 blogs. Somewhere in the vicinity of 50 hits per day generally has been the norm. Some days were much bigger, like when I called for New Orleans Saints football coach Sean Payton to come clean about his role in Bountygate. Some were much, much smaller as when I taught from the book of Nehemiah about leadership.
A high of 241 hits to a low of about 20, the days ranged.
But not for a moment did God ever forsake me. Through 1,000 blogs, God was constant, even when I was not. He was holy each morning, righteous each evening, whether I was blogging from the woods or from the beach, blogging from a joyful existence or blogging from a pained one, pondering from Israel's mountains to Florida's sands.
For a 1,000 miles of wordy expression, God was only good, was only sovereign, was only God -- trustworthy, forgiving, forgetting -- walking each step with a stumbling, sinful fool alongside.
Even when it was hard, maybe especially when it was hard, God comforted, loved, held on to, willed me into submission as if I was a training pup.
Till we arrived here, together. One thousand strong (and occasionally weak), I believe this has been the quest, to go together into the unknown where we most often find God.
The scriptures say Job (beaten and beaten up, worn and worn out, wanting and wanted) listened to God say, "Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God's critic, but do you have the answers?"
Job squared his shoulders, looked into the heavens, into the throne room, into the arms of God himself and responded, "I am nothing -- how could I ever find the answers? I will cover my mouth with my hand. I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say."
God said to Job, "Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them...ARE YOU AS STRONG AS GOD? Can you thunder with a voice like this? Al right, put on your glory and splendor, you honor and majesty."
Job answered these and many other questions from the Lord. "You asked, 'Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance...You said, 'Listen and I will speak. I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.' I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes."
The batter swings and the summer flies.
Till the next 1,000 or so.
2 comments:
And every season has its blessing and glory. When I was a kid, I loved summer. No school, lots of swimming weather, and my birthday in July. Older, in New Orleans, I hated summer and its endless stifling humidity capped by watching for hurricanes. This year, I decided to embrace the summer - to thank God for it. Somehow, miraculously, the shorts & t-shirt saturated with sweat, the sting of sweat in my eyes while mowing the lawn, all became a blessing, a cause for joy and praise to my Maker. Somehow, directly or indirectly, I rather think you helped me get there Billy. Thanks.
KH,
Your comments always mean so much to me. Isn't it special that this weird weather, with record low highs (which is a weird statment) dotting the landscape. We're getting cold fronts in the land of cotton candy air (air so thick you can see)in the time of the year when we're most often the worst for wear. What can we say about that? Oh, what a blessing. Emrace it for somehow it has occurred. God is good in the heat; in the cold; in the saturation and in the dry unaccounted for breeze. God is good...is the message.
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