SATELLITES AND SIRENS “Blood, Sweat, and Rock ‘n Roll Tour” BLOG 6:
Hey everyone:)
If you’ve been following this blog, you also know that I planned on sitting outside to write last week, only to have my computer battery wimp out on me, and force me to sit indoors. Well, this week I planned ahead a little better, and I’m sitting out in the sun (well…me in the shade, my feet in the sun, haha, and an iced coffee in hand). You would also know from last week that I have been diagnosed with two ear infections and a sinus infection. Earlier this morning I actually had a follow-up with my ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) specialist, and it looks like I’m going to be okay. I still have temporary hearing loss, but that will heal up as the infection continues to clear and my right ear heals from having been ruptured, due to pressure from the infection. I’m also cleared to be back playing music, which will resume at the Blood, Sweat, and Rock ‘n Roll Tour on Thursday April, 8 in Owensboro, Kentucky. Yeah!!! I’m excited to get back on the road. Come find us and say “Hello”.
As you might have gathered from previous posts I’ve lately been pondering faith and trust these days, and why it is that we find it so difficult. Truth be told, it’s part of what makes us human, but no less frustrating. I had lunch a couple days ago with a good friend of mine who has recently had some revelations about life now that he has a daughter, who is now three, and who is ridiculously cute. Granted, his revelations weren’t anything new, but I found what he had to say… “refreshing”, as he so acutely put it. As we were eating, my friend more or less started to think out loud about how his child doesn’t really have a care in the world, and that she doesn’t have any preconceived notions about life. He recalled stories of her running into rooms and yelling “surprise”, and about her unconditional love. You could see it in his face, that he was completely genuine about the way he has observed his daughter and the impact that it has had on him. He said it was refreshing to come home from a frustrating day at work and look into the face of someone who wasn’t burdened with worry, and with the things that so easily drag us down. You could tell that “refreshing” was the perfect word for what he was describing. We talked about how different it would be if we could still live our lives that way, without that worry, without that frustration. (Cue cheesy symphony music, and a bright picture of the sunset rolling over the oceans waters….) What if we *could*, in some sense, live that out?
God really did say that He wanted us to love Him, and trust Him as if we were a child. When you put it in those terms, it seems like it should be easy, but I’m pretty sure most of us have forgotten what it was like to be a child…and maybe for good reason. Which doesn’t make it easy. I’d love to be able to run through the grass without the fear that I’ll be cut or stung by a scorpion (yep…that happened to me:), or to be able to rock out to whatever music tickles my fancy in the moment. But it’s too easy to be fearful of our well being, or what someone else thinks of us. God tells us that fear of man is basically ridiculous. We should have no fear there, it shouldn’t matter if you really dig that old Backstreet Boys tune, even if it’s an abomination to all things artsy. So go ahead, and feel free to dance at a concert and to sing along to your music in your car with the windows down. Because, honestly, that’s one step towards a freedom that includes laying your trust at God’s feet, to not being afraid to fail, and to not being afraid to disappoint yourself or those around you.
*(Matthew 6:25-34 NIV) “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? {26} Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? {27} Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? {28} “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. {29} Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. {30} If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? {31} So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ {32} For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. {33} But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. {34} Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.“*
*****
Peace,
David