humbleness

I’m up today at Tapestry: Have Your Pie and Eat It Too exploring some tasty recipes for humbleness.

Now here’s the fun part. You know when two of your best friends meet and they hit it off and all the sudden the three of you are like some TV show friendship? That’s what happened yesterday when I saw this. Buster from Arrested Development meet Chuck from Chuck.

Watch Ctrl Z (Director Robert Kirbyson) in Entertainment Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

And the music at the end. Love it! It’s Cat Jahnke, and you can find more of her here.

The Naked Life

While I do believe clothing to be an evil that may or may not be necessary, no worries, this post has nothing to do with physical nakedidity (50 points for knowing which character in my favorite TV show used this term often).

It has to do with Isaiah (who did go naked for some amount of time based on God’s command–oh, the crazy things prophets do) and yesterday’s sermon.

Yesterday, the priest preached from Isaiah 30, about this idea of our running around trying to do things our way. Maybe we don’t see it as doing it our way. Maybe we see it as trying to do good things for God.

That’s how I see it, at least.

I’m speaking of my speaking. I feel called to do this speaking ministry thing. Only things don’t always go as I think they should. So I run around, "God, shouldn’t you use me this way!" and "God! This would be perfect…for your kingdom, of course." But God says,

If you repented and patiently waited for me, you would be delivered; if you calmly trusted in me you would find strength, but you are unwilling.

Oh, Israel loved to do things their own way, didn’t they? It started with their father Abraham, who went to wait-for-it, Egypt, leaving the Promised Land, and deceived Pharaoh, saying Abe’s wife was his sister. In Isaiah, the Israelites, all in a tither about some problem or another, decided to go to here-it-is-again, Egypt (except now, they had this history with Egypt–Egypt had held them in slavery for 400 years).

And God said, "I’m waiting for you guys to come to me." Isaiah said,

For this reason the Lord is ready to show you mercy; he sits on his throne, ready to have compassion on you. Indeed, the Lord is a just God; all who wait for him in faith will be blessed.

He’s waiting for me to stop running tracks in my rug. I’m not arguing that suddenly my ministry would be blessed with millions of people if I do this. But I think it’s about my relationship with God and submitting to him and doing things his way, whatever that means.

That’s what I learned from the sermon yesterday. Because I’m weary. And God gives rest.