My return to the blogging world...brace yo'self

Years ago (read as "A long, long time ago...."), I had a blog on my own website.  I was a Youth Pastor and the blog was a creative outlet for me and kept my youth and adult volunteers plugged in.  I kept up the blog with weekly posts for about 3 years of the 5 years or so I was a "real" Youth Pastor (not just a volunteer without a real sounding title...you know who you are).  As I became discouraged, way too busy, and the site hosting fees kept increasing, insert your favorite excuse here, I quit the site and the blog.  Fast forward to 2020.... through the years, I have moved from volunteer in various areas of church service and ministry to Youth Pastor to Senior Pastor to no pastorate to leading an associational summer youth camp for the past few years along with my partner in crime, spouse, cheerleader, lion tamer, and all around best friend.  Over the last few years, I have been trained as a Chaplain serving in Disaster Relief through the North American Mission Board (https://namb.net).  Enough on the the reunion tour...

So, I could not sleep any longer this morning...I woke up at 6 AM...so completely not a morning person (I magically become somewhat human around the second cup of coffee).  I was having some quiet time...you know, the thing that all Christians say you should have and many of us neglect.  Well, I did not neglect that time.  I felt God impressing upon me to return to blogging. 

I argued with God (of course - when was the last time I just did what God was leading me to do???) about how many bloggers there were and how the explosive excess of words on the Internet was just choking up many gigabytes of server storage (this is a technical term...it means using a lot of storage -kinda like the collection of whatever you collect sitting in the closet that your wife has told you to sort through and dispose of...) and most of those words are empty and trivial and would not even serve as a good fertilizer and many have a vile stench like the indescribable, hairy remnants of leftovers in that re-used sour cream container (yes, the one shoved in the back of the fridge on the bottom shelf...you know the one...you dare not open it for fear of unleashing a plague upon your nostrils and any close inhabitants).  I mean, seriously...look at the blogs, Facebook posts, tweets, snaps, insert your favorite gibberish creating and sharing platform catch phrase here, etc.... Look at them all...empty words based on someone's idea of truth not founded in any truth and especially not the Truth found in Christ. 

While I have no delusions of grandeur (which, to be honest, if I pull a phrase like that out, I obviously have at least a slightly glistening delusion of some sort...not quite up to the standards of grandeur, mind you), I am hoping to create a space where I can, in my random rambling sort of way through use of parenthetical thoughts (like this one), strange musings (did you see the sour cream container comment above???), and intentionally horrible use of grammar and sentence structure (my apologies to Mrs. Desper, Mrs. Pringle, Miss Seaton, Mrs. Jacobs and whole host of other English teachers and professors who are hopefully not grading my posts...), create a place, a space, a cove of safety and solitude to just pause and reflect on God, His Son, and our daily walk, service and sacrifice (and maybe chuckle just a little bit that you found someone as messed up in their sense of humor and walk as you are).  My hope is if you have never placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your only hope of salvation, that you would find Him in this blog somewhere....that these posts would try to be a little less church-y and Christian-ese filled and instead try to explain things in a way that would honor God and draw you close to Him (that was kinda church-y and Christian-ese). 

What I mean is this...God is real.  You can know Him. You can have a real relationship with this immense being that created the world....with this being you cannot see.  You can grow to know more about Him and call Him Father.  He loves you.  You can not do anything to make Him love you more, nor do anything to make him love you less.  Why?  Because He alone is Creator and that is the way He is.

So, buckle up, strap in, put your tray table in it's upright and locked position, keep your arms and legs inside while moving, insert your favorite safety-related phrase here, because I have returned to blogging. I cannot guarantee weekly content ( I mean...there is no warranty or guarantee expressly written or implied...).  My thoughts are random, and I will try my best to capture them as they pass briefly through my brain pan.  Thanks for reading my first post (if in fact you did read this....)!