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I was supposed to put the second part of a blog I posted last week, but let me interrupt with a little thing God did today....

I went to my second Cross Country race today. No, No, not for me, but for my son Lake who is in the third grade. Let me set the stage...

It was at Cove Lake. The mountains, majestic in the distance, and the lake hugging the course, served as a perfect backdrop for a memorable race. The girls raced, then the boys. Both races begin with a couple hundred kids lined up like scottish warriors waiting for Mel Gibson to say, "They may take our water bottles but they can't take our Gatorade!" The only thing missing from the racers were kilts, blue war paint, and spears. I have never seen anything like it. At the sound of a gun, hundreds of kids raced for one goal....the Finish Line.

It was a clear day, not a cloud in the sky, yet the water works almost came down. Not from the sky, but rolling down my cheeks. I don't really know what came over me but when I saw these kids crossing the Finish Line I about lost it...and it wasn't even my kid! All of the different expressions on these kids faces were priceless. From happiness to relief to confidence and my favorite...pain.

Kids crossing in pain got me choked up. Kids pushing their bodies to the point of pain just got to me. I guess it wasn't just the pain but pain handcuffed to pleasure. The pleasure of finishing. I saw it in my son's eyes.

You know how you can think one thousand thoughts in one second? But to express those thoughts would take ten pages? Well, I don't have the time to write that and you don't have the time to read them. But indulge me a little...

Earlier this summer, I was able to go the Crosswalk Reunion, a reunion for all those who went to the youth group of Trinity Chapel. It was nice to see people I had not seen in 15-20 years. During the reunion, we had people share about how much Crosswalk meant to them. My friend, Paul, got up and shared his testimony and it brought tears to those in the room. But one thing he shared stuck with me. He looked at everyone in the room and said, "I'm finishing this thing...I'm going to finish this race"! When you give your life to Christ at an early age, sometimes you don't have years of pain to go through to test that faith. Now, twenty years later, I can echo the same sentiments as my friend Paul. With years of pain built up...dissapointments, false expectations, mixed with the awesome faithfullness of God...I am going to Finish this Race!

Today finally put art to Paul's words. It summed it up in a living painting. We may not finish first, but if we don't finish this race in Pain and Pleasure...maybe we never ran the right race. Loving Jesus involves pain, but it is blended with the pure pleasure of serving Him...isn't that worth fighting for...worth finishing for?

Can't get away from it....

My son sends me a text... Hey today at school "Billy" and I talk about church and he says he doesn't go to church, so I said we could get him a thing for every Sunday morning At first, I didn't understand what Sam was talking about. He was referring to his friend who does not go to church. When I got home and we were talking about his day at school, he was interpreting his text for me. I don't believe I am the only parent who has to have these daily interpretations. He basically was saying since "Billy" doesn't go to church we could get him some Bibles for his family and bring church to him. This, of course, is without any kind of permission or acknowledgement from the parents....but nevertheless, awesome! Images of Sam and I showing up at this family's door on Sunday and barging in to have church with them was kinda fun to think about.... Sam didn't blink an eye, or try to think of a reason or "plan" to get him to come to church. The common sense of it all was obvious to him...but still hard for some of us to grasp, "Bring church to HIM"! As a parent, I was proud. As a Christian...convicted. You know, we can't get away from it. This whole thing is "Incarnational". Is that a word? If not, maybe that is the point. Words need to be fleshed out or this whole thing is bunk. Jesus didn't bring us to Himself before he came down to us. It is amazing when you read the scriptures with the theme of incarnation running through your mind. Try it...IT will start to revolutionize the way you walk with Christ...and disrupt the way you walk here on earth. I think of two examples of this most passionate theme in scripture.... Elisha experienced incarnation in a very interesting way. The woman who was promised a son by Elisha has come back to him in distress. The son, the apple of her eye, is now dead. Elisha, seeing the distress and desperateness of the woman, with no hesitation sends Gehazi to raise the boy up. Gehazi runs as fast as he can to the boy and lays Elisha's staff on the boy's face. And you know what happened? "Nothin'!" (you have to say this like De Niro in the "Untouchables"). Gehazi comes back and tells Elisha that he is still dead. So Elisha goes and lays his body...mouth to mouth...nose to nose...hand to hand....feet to feet....right on that dead boy. Then the dead boy sneezed on him and opened his eyes! Elisha should have known this was the only thing that would have worked. His mentor, Elijah, did the same thing to raise a boy back to life. Even though the methods of miracles in the bible change from book to book, the lesson here is shouting through the ages as the church grapples with social media and a technological age that rivals personal touch. We've got to get dirty and physical. Sending "Elisha Staff" text messages through a wireless 4Gehazi network doesn't get the job done. We've got to get down on the dead...that's it. This whole thing is about a baby in a manger....and when we get away from that, we get away from the gospel. I will give the second example in the next blog post. Can you give me an example of Incarnation in the Bible? Shout it out to me, or better yet, deliver it in person.