Early Sunday Message

I confess to struggling lately.  Struggling in my Bible reading, in my morning prayers, in my turning things over to God.  Lately, I've known the piper was due to be paid; in my prayers, I could sense a bit of God's back facing me.  Sure enough, here we are.  A crappy day at work that I probably could have handled better, a short day (a nooner, to go with Tuesday off because our customer is about two weeks away from letting the dogs loose) just to help NEXT weeks paycheck (If anyone can explain to me why some idiot invented the 2-week pay cycle, let me know)... but the real problem was me.  I stubbornly paid a non-late bill I could have waited on.  I bought those mixed beers last week, and talked KC into going out.  And now... I'm completely tapped out.  And Laurie is close.  So we have Ye Olde Liquidity Problem yet again.

So tonight as Scrappy and I walked, I got down to real praying.  Apologizing for my distance, confessing my failures in every area I could think of, not asking for any miracles, just asking for forgiveness.  And it felt good, but it wasn't quite complete.  Do you want to know how I know God listens?  The thing that my atheist friends refuse to understand? 

Before we left, the TV was on Andy Griffith.  The episode was the one where an out-of-town businessman got cheesed because Andy hauled him back to Mayberry to pay a fine.  He set his lawyer to get Andy back, and he sent his paralegal, a young lady posing as a college student, to worm Andy's "deep dark secrets" out of Barney.

Barney obliged in his usual "in my expert opinion" way, and Andy got hauled before a state commissioner to answer charges he was unfit.  Of course, Barney's heartfelt testimony saved Andy, and afterwards Barney hesitantly put out his hand, seeking forgiveness, and Andy shook it.  I told myself that this would be an excellent "frustration bone":  something I could chew on as to why Andy ALWAYS let Barney get away with that crap, and use that to take out the day's frustration.

So, as I ended the prayer (or so I thought), I stirred my mind to debate why Andy would shake his hand instead of, say, telling him, "Y'know, Barn, we've known each other a long time, but..."

And suddenly it came to me:  Andy shook the hand because he KNOWS Barney, that it's just the way that Barney is and isn't likely to change- and that's enough.  His friendship is more valuable that any harm Barney could do to it.

It's easy to see who's Chris and who's God in this picture, isn't it?

 

And then the brief set of tears came.  And I realized I had put out my hand, and God had shook it yet again.  The money will eventually work out, the problems at work aren't life-threatening.  The important thing was I got my head out of my butt and my hand out of my pocket.  The rest will work out.


-----------------------------------------------------

Speaking of that incredible 3 1/2 mile walk at a blazing 2.33 MPH, here's some pictures from tonight's action, plus a couple from last night.

 

Here's a bunny from last night, and Scrappy's desperate pursuit.

At sunset, the woods looked like it was filled with glowing embers.  Beautiful, as long as nothing's REALLY burning..

Then we saw a couple of deer just at the edge of the tree line.

View from the new underpass.

 

Spider's eye-view

Nobody here but us pigeons...

 

Been seeing a lot of these orange guys lately...

"Ahh, that's better..."

 

Mr. Ground Hog taking in the sunset..

You might can't see them but there were like a million nesting birds flying through this picture...



 

I just had the thought of doing a "blast from the past" picture- looking through my older files for something I haven't seen in a while.  Here's tonight's blast...  From October 6th last year..