I’m not going to do one of those “wow, it’s been nearly a month since my last post” blogs. I’ve got a newborn and I can do whatever I want.
With that said…
My wife and I are futurists. I don’t mean that in whatever way that word actually means. Rather I think that many people live their lives out of the past. They always in their heart of hearts wish that they could go back to ’89 back when things were fun and simple (see: Uncle Rico). Or people allow the poor choices they’ve made in the past define their identity in the present. I think a lot of people are stuck in the past.
Jess and I are stuck in the future. We are constantly talking about how to change, about how we would like to be, about how organized we could be, etc. There’s always a stipulation of course. We could be really organized if only we could get that one thing from ikea. Or we could get up early before our kids got up every day if only India slept better (and I’m not saying these aren’t accurate statements). We tend to live in the future where we have ideals for how things can and one day will be. It sounds better, living in the future. But I’m not sure it is. I’ve found that it causes me to be dissatisfied in the present. I miss important opportunities because I’m preoccupied with how that opportunity would be better if only I could learn to keep my house cleaner. Every day is filled with gifts, both small and incredibly huge. And I’d say it’s a fair assumption that those who live primarily out of their past aren’t able to see many of those gifts. And those who live only out of the future tend to look past those gifts while anticipating better ones.
Don’t get too philosophical on me. I know we need to remember where we came from (past) and we need to anticipate and prepare for our future. There are huge values in both, or maybe it’s better put to say that it’s essential to grasp onto both. But God has given us no other moment to live than right this very second…and I guess I don’t want to lose it.

Ahh the joys of being a parent. I know the two’s are supposed to be terrible (and don’t get me wrong, they are miserable at points) but I am finding them so incredibly funny. Today in Jones’ swimming class Jones said to his swim instructor “Excuse me Drew can I use a noodle?”. Throughout todays class he kept yelling to my parents who were two stories above us and behind a glass wall watching. “I love you!” and “Grandpa, BB (that’s what he calls my mom. It started with Grandma B and turned into that. Needless to say we encourage it) hey!” and other things. There were times he yelled at them so loud that they actually heard him through the glass. The last week we keep finding Jones muttering to himself while he plays in his room “Ba ba black sheep have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. One for my master, one for my dame, and one for my master daddy.” He doesn’t sing it, he just says it. He chants it like a mantra (yessss, just as I’ve trained him). Apparently Jones knows everything too. Books that we’ve read him only a few times we’ve found he has memorized. People he hasn’t seen for a year (that’s not long for us but in kid years that’s a lifetime) he remembers their hair color and the funny things they said. Songs that I sang him before Jess was pregnant are recently being discovered as memorized lyrics in his brain. I don’t know if all kids are like this, if he’s just special, or what. But it scares me. A couple of days ago he copied Jess and said “what the frick”. He’s seen me pick my nose and now he won’t stop. While playing his guitar last week he called me into his room to sing with him. He set up his sheet music (some old papers he found on the ground), sat on his chair, got his pick (it was a stick), and instructed me to sing “Jesus is Able”. At one point he paused his picking to remind me to “listen to the words daddy” as we are often reminded to do during worship. Jones has tattoos too. An infinity symbol on each wrist that he wears bracelets over. I don’t know where he got that idea. Eventually the infinity symbols became picks on each wrist and then he asked for a guitar on his back. Cute kid.

As for India, the stories aren’t as free flowing quite yet. She poops, pees, pukes, groans, smiles, laughs (kind of), sleeps, cries, rolls over (check out the video on my beautiful wife’s blog), and stares at the red curtains. I did forget in the last two years though what it’s like to constantly sleep on pukie slimed sheets. You just wipe it with a burp rag and go back to sleep. Yum. She’s beautiful, fat (already gained 3+ pounds and grown 2 inches), and is A2J (addicted to Jessica)

People already cry when they read this book. A mother holds her little baby boy and sings to him “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as you’re living my baby you’ll be.” The pages go on as the boy grows older and older and becomes a man. Eventually one day the mother grows old and can no longer sing the sing. And so her son, the grown man, sings to his mother “I’ll love you forever. I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living my mother you’ll be.” The story ends with the son singing this same song to his infant daughter. Heart wrenching right? Touching right?

Well you don’t know the half of it!

Robert Munsch, the author, wrote the little song long before he ever made the book. He sang that song in his head for years because he wrote it for his two children that were still born. That song was his special song for them and it was years before he was able and willing to share his song with the world. If that doesn’t make you tear up I don’t know what will.

It’s all about me. It’s all about you. That’s what Christianity often is all about. Me and you. Or should I say you and I. The reason I think this is that the questions we ask are so fundamentally egocentric that it’s shocking.
When I read through the book of Acts I see all sorts of crap happen. Life was unjust for those early Christ Followers. Stephen died because people lied about him. People had to scatter across the world and leave their homes because a man named Saul was dragging them out and killing them. People were tortured, imprisoned, and ridiculed. But their questions were not our questions. We ask questions like “why would God do this?” or “how could God let this happen” or “if there were a God he wouldn’t let ______ happen” or we shake our fist at God saying things like “I thought you’d take care of me!” or “How could you do this!” We truly believe that God owes us something. Does he? Should he? He is all powerful. And he’s supposed to be love incarnate (for lack of a better word). So with those two characteristics why would we think any different of this God?
I don’t have any great answers, just some observations about that group of believers in the first century.
Why wasn’t Stephen angry about dieing? Did God know that if he lived he could do so much more for the kingdom? Why wasn’t Paul and Peter frustrated that they were imprisoned cruelly? What about James, one of the apostles who was martyred very early. Shouldn’t he have lived longer? Shouldn’t God have cared enough to save his life? And yet they didn’t shake their fists at God, no, they had a different starting place. Their starting place was much less egocentric I think. They were honored to die for Jesus. They didn’t believe that being a Christ Follower meant a safer more protected life. Rather they knew and understood that being a Christ Follower would be more painful, more difficult. And today I expect to be protected. Hmm…
Maybe it’s because their view of Christianity was one where this world was not their home, their prize was in the sky. Their gift was an eternal one. And it wasn’t like some Christian sects today where they hold onto those truths and then spout off about not being active politically, or not going to doctors, or not being active in the community. These early believers took care of those who were sick, orphans, widows, the impoverished. They did their best to bring Jesus’ kingdom to earth by living out kingdom principles (as taught through most of Jesus’ parables).
I want to type more but I’m late for a meeting. Maybe I’ll edit this later today. Anyway, I want to be a Christ Follower who is less concerned with my wellbeing and more concerned with the opportunity I have to bring a piece of his kingdom to this world by sharing love, hope, pizza, and water. I’m just glad that God works with what I give him…but hopefully I’ll learn to give him more.

This photo has stayed with me for nearly six years now. It doesn’t sit in some box of old photos that you look at once every two years. Neither does it lie in a photo album that sits on our non existent coffee table or on a dusty shelf. Rather this photo has sat in a Betty Crocker cookbook, it has graced our fridge, it has sat in the book of Psalms in my Bible, and lately it has sat in Jessicas pile of scrap booking things. Thank you Filipe for your smile.