it's been so long!!!

Wow, so I apparently haven't even stopped by my own blog in a REALLY long time. Not to do anything but check my blog and make sure it was still working at least. It seems I have survived the summer. School is back in session now, and I feel like I can take a breather for a couple of minutes. I loved my summer, don't get me wrong, but being gone for 4 out of 12 weeks is a LOT, especially for a guy not used to that many weeks gone.

But, that said, it was a challenge for me to be gone, to be on the move, and to still be a husband/dad/youth pastor/barista. Parts of it I absolutely loved, other parts I never want to repeat.

But, coming out of the summer, I have had a LOT of thoughts floating around in my head. Thoughts about who I am, who I am wanting to be, and how to re-learn living out of the deepest parts of my heart.

Part of what I realized this summer is my need to be bold. Listening to people speak at camps, I watched people speak boldly about their love of Jesus, and not be concerned with stepping on toes, or over-simplifying the gospel. I don't mind offending people because I think at it's core the gospel is quite offensive, but I sometimes try to make the idea so easy to grasp that I overdo it and strip out some of the depth and meaning unintentionally. I need to change that. So, I find myself in a place of retooling what and how I say things, and making sure that my trying to get the point across doesn't get lost in translation.

Another thing I have found from the summer that I need to fix is my being consistent, and living on intentionally. My wife, who is AWESOME at pulling out her "crap detector" has worked me over in a good way with that thing. Here's what happened: we got into a couple of "normal" spouse-ly brushes this summer, and I found myself saying the phrase "well, I didn't mean to _____" which in my mind was true, and not all bad, right? When out of the blue God jumps in my wife's mouth and smacked me upside the head with the point "yeah, you're not meaning to do ______, and you're not doing anything at all." BAM.

So, I find myself now in need of some changes, but changes for the better. I fight as much as I can to be genuine, and to live out of my heart, but it seems my heart needs a bit of work. I need to "not try to do ____" and "do _____" and be more a person of action. And even more so than that, my action needs to be rooted in love, which it wasn't always this summer, as I got caught up in being too busy, and not saying no to things.

Fortunately, I have found some friends to give me food for thought, and inspiration, they're called heartsupport. and they are awesome people. I have local friends to hang with for sure, and I need that community, but I love HS because it's a group of people who are there on purpose to be people seeking hope, love, and to live deep and from the right place. You should check them out, you might like them.

Well, off I go, to see a good friend and talk life and such. I love OkC, and this buddy of mine is deeply embedded in some amazing things in OkC. I am looking forward to what we can do together in the fall. Should be awesome.

live deeper. (for real, and from the right places)