Has it been that long...

I guess it's been too long between posts when you can't remember your user name and password anymore. It took me a little while but I finally figured it out.

Today was a good day for me ministry-wise. In Bible class this morning we talked about a short little passage in Matthew 14:34 when Jesus and His disciples land at Genessarett. The people there go all over the place telling everyone that Jesus has come. I asked our students when the last time was that they were THAT excited about Jesus. I told them that I don't think I've ever been so excited that I just told everyone I saw about Jesus. I wrestle with that a lot. Being a minister it's easy to play the "well I talk about Jesus for a living" card without ever really actually doing it outside the walls of the church. So I get nervous about passages when Jesus tells people things like, "Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me," or "Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this sinful and adulteress generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in glory." I don't help people in need and I'm too embarrassed to tell people about Jesus who don't already know Him. So I've decided to be Jesus. Not literally, but I've decided to be Jesus to people I see, and be Jesus by going in search of people who need to be loved, listened to, hugged, and blessed. I plan to make it my mission tomorrow and the next day (and however long it takes) to find a place in Houston where I can be among the least of these; a place where I can boldly DO what I KNOW and not just claim to know what I'm doing. It's the beginning of a hopefully long journey of growing to be as much like Jesus as I can, thereby falling madly and deeply in love with Him. To love Him, we must become Him.

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I had a moment where I remembered why I love teenagers. One of our middle school guys watched a lot of TV yesterday; so much that he swears his brain exploded and repaired itself while he slept. He watched stand up comedy all day and while watching he was reflecting on his only attempt at stand up comedy - the 3rd grade talent show. As he sat listening to the comics on TV, he started thinking about some jokes he could have told at the talent show. So this morning he says to me, "If I had a time machine, I'd go back to 3rd grade and tell better jokes."

"Let me get this straight," I said. "If you had a time machine, the one thing you would want to do is go back and tell better jokes at your 3rd grade talent show?"

"Yeah." He said. "What else would I do?"

I love teenagers.

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Last thing...

Today we experienced our first Walk Through the Bible seminar. It was amazing. If you've never done one, do it the first chance you get. We learned so much about the Old Testament and had a blast doing it. It has piqued our interest to study more and to make it a regular habit of training our boys to memorize scripture.