About This Blogging Thing

You may not have noticed but I took about three weeks off from this blogging thing. I guess its time to get back with it. Actually, I'm somewhat old school about some things and prefer to call these offerings articles or essays. But we've gone from smoke signals, drums, letters, pigeons, telegraph, telephone, email and now blogs. Progress! Before you know it, we'll have a man on the moon. I heard a smart man speak regarding love and laughter,those magnetized twins (some times they attract, sometimes they repel), that if you have to explain either one then it's probably neither. That is true about many things so I shouldn't attempt to explain these articles. So I will. When I started at White Bluff I just started writing them. No explanation. They just showed up in your inbox one day. We don't send it via email anymore. You've got to want it enough to make a few clicks with the mouse and go get it. But why do them at all? What's the reason then? I can't answer that succinctly-hey I'm a preacher what did you expect? That actually is the key word-expect. I write in hopeful expectation. For what do I hope? I take my cue from Isaiah 61:1-3. (if this were a sermon this is where you read the passage-so look it up. Go ahead, the rest of the article will make more sense) This happens to be the passage Jesus cited when He began His ending phase of ministry that will change everything we know about heaven and earth, living and dying, God and Satan, and history itself. There are wonderful things in this passage and also some tough things. It's easy to want to proclaim God's favor, His grace, but in this passage are also words about God's vengeance. If one adopts this passage to guide you, you will find yourself up to your epistles in mourning and grieving people. This scripture deals with binding up broken hearts, comforting those who mourn, and crowning heads once heaped with the ashes of sorrow with tiaras of triumph. Beauty for ashes...nice trade don't you think? So I sit at a computer a few hours a week in hopeful expectation pecking out these little essays, articles, wonderments. I hope you find a bit of a rag in these words to help you dust off some ashes and see the glitter of a crown headed you way. Some days they may be funny, even if I didn't intend it that way. I hope most days they make you think. Occasionally, they may make you feel, deeply I hope. On rare days, I hope they make you mad. On all days I hope they help you hang on. I'll bring my thoughts, questions, experiences, and put them into these articles. I hope by voicing them maybe I can wander, stumble, walk, run or crawl toward Jesus.You bring your hopes and dreams, anger and hurts, questions and experiences, joy and victories. I'll write, you read, and if you and I meet Jesus somewhere in the middle of these essays, then it was time well wasted.