Searching for Meaning and Purpose...

I keep wondering if spring is actually going to show up this year. We keep going from nice to nasty, nice to nasty, rinse, repeat, annoy the crud out of me! Talk about fun, we were even supposed to get snow last night after being in the 70's Saturday and a warm morning into early afternoon Sunday. My knees are not happy. Every winter I reach this point where I just cannot stand the cold, bleak, dark days any more. I reach the end of my rope and need something different. Not only that, but I need the new to arrive. I cannot sit around and see the death that strikes nature every year without the glimmer of hope, otherwise life degenerates into meaninglessness. But, the joy, the hope that I see is new life. It isn't just a guess, it's a promise. We know that the flowers will bloom, the trees will bud, things will become green and life will continue. We know this to be true, yet while we're here in the bleak, winter landscape it's hard to see beyond that to th...

As we move into a new day, it dawns on me again how thankful I should be for another chance to breath, think, live, and be. It's also a new day to see what God has in store for me as a minster and for my students. Not only that, but as we embark on citywide youth adventure number two (737 at the Middle School too, not just the High School) I am excited! The new song from Passion, God of This City, has me so stoked. The refrain comes around: "Greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city..." That resonates with me on so many levels. First is the fact that it is about this city, not just First Presby, or First Baptist, First Christian, or New Life, or First United Methodist. I work with a phenomenal group of youth workers who are passionately driven to see God's kingdom come here in El Dorado. They are SO not driven by personal kingdom growth (meaning their church and their youth group) and it is such an awesome thing to see ...