The Music of Trinity

trin * Precursor: I know nothing of music theory or taken any classes for this. I am, by no means, an expert in this area.

It is my understanding that a chord is made up of three notes. Chords are based off of scale of 1-7. So a major chord is when 1,3,and 5 are played at the same time. For instance: a G Chord is made of the notes G(1),B(3), and D(5) being played at the same time.

Have I lost you? Hopefully not; you do not have to really understand what I just said, stick with me.

Have you ever had a difficult time understanding or explaining realities of the trinity? One God, three persons Father, Son, Holy Spirit; each distinct yet not a part of the whole, but each a whole

If I sat at a piano and played the note, G The sound would fill the room we sat in. The note alone could fill the entire space with its sound. That note never changes. That G is always G. Same with a B and D.

But if I play these three distinct notes at the exact same time they make one whole Chord that is beautiful and it also fills the entire space we are in with its sound while each of these three notes also fills the entire space with their sound

You can sit and think about this all day. I have...several days.

An open letter to my daughters' husbands (or any boy they bring around)

look It is important for me to start off telling you how much my wife and I dislike you. I imagine my daughter has told you not to worry, 'my dad does not like any guy that comes home' and she is correct, partly. She is correct in telling you I dislike every guy who comes around, but she is very mistaken to tell you not to worry. I do not like you, but it is also important for you to know I believe in grace and mercy.

These are gifts I have received a great deal of in my life. You will, with my sincerest apology, have a much harder time receiving from me what I was so freely given. And for further perspective on this matter, know that I was given this grace from One who had far less reason to give it to me than I have for you...like eternally less! You know what I mean?

What am I saying? You ought to know what I mean, or you and I should not be having this conversation.

All this being said, there are a great number of things you are going to need to know and listen to if you are to pursue my daughter; that being the first thing: my daughter is to be pursued. She is not to be conquered or won like a little boy's game. This is going to require an enormous amount of your time and even larger amount of your energy. If this is the first I have ever heard of you, you may walk away now and begin a larger and longer pursuit.

If you have been pursuing with integrity, friendship, and honor, there are now a few other things you ought to know. It is an expectation that you will one day provide for my daughter, but listen very carefully to me...

Food, shelter, and finances does not make you a provider. You are nothing more than an assistance program.

A man is to provide far more than finances. How prepared are you to provide presence? You will need to learn and prove that you know how to be entirely present with and for my daughter. Do not assume that being in the same physical space makes you present. Do you have the capacity to be present emotionally, spiritually, and integrally? If you do not, then this conversation is over and you have some work to do.

If you need to hang around a bit and watch the way I love her mother, you are welcomed to do so. Watch and learn!

Because you must understand this; if I am ever (and this remains a large "IF") to give my daughter's hand, it will only be because I place her into hands I trust will be present in at least a fraction of the way I have strived to be for her since long before you ever came around.

Still the only MAN in Bryleigh/Haddisen's life,

PC

ps. I still dislike you

Take God lightly

"Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance." Romans 2:4 I wan to never take lightly God's amazing kindness, tolerance, and patience. But on a given day, how lightly I often consider and think upon these incredible things!

Repentance proves I do not take his kindness, tolerance, and patience lightly.

Bask: a prayer

Abba, May your spirit connect directly with mine!  May my spirit truly worship yours!  Today I am striving to bask in your love.  Not to think about your love and try to feel your love, but to sit and bask in your love.  I sit here right now drinking in your love.  Your love that calls me your child and sees me as blameless.  A love that relates to me in my spirit and not my flesh.  I praise you and deeply thank you for loving me in my spirit instead of my flesh.

I swim in the love of my heavenly Father who has loved me despite my flesh and the mistakes and struggles it trips on.  You love me because you see through my flesh, my feelings and my facade into my spirit which truly does remain blameless due to the outrageous price you paid for me so long ago.

Today, Abba, I rest in your love that I could NEVER receive from anyone else.  I am skinny-dipping in the waters of your love that lavishes me in acceptance, mercy, grace and spiritual pleasure.  I am truly drinking in a love I could never return.  I long for you to be pleased, and I trip and stumble to make you happy and you still tell me not to compare and measure your love for me in terms of my love for you! I try not to compare my lazy, passive, conditional, emotional, and often theoretical love with your love.

I rest in your love today with the realization that no matter how amazing my wife or daughters' love for me is, it will fail in comparison to yours.  That no matter how much my mother loves me, it will tremble at yours.  That I CANNOT depend solely on Tonya, Bryleigh, Haddisen, mom, friends, books, or my writing to feel special, loved or valid, but to depend only on your love.

I am taking this moment to really trust in your love for me at my deepest core, to spend a moment claiming my identity as your beloved child, and TRUSTING that enough to believe...BECAUSE of that I am special, loved and valid.  I am your child and I am drinking that love in right now.  Thank you for loving me, Daddy.  I love you and desire you to be happy, and I trust that I truly am special, loved and valid BECAUSE of your love for me.

Barely scratching the surface on connecting with God in spirit

* This is a very humble wondering and searching, and not a perfect scholarly approach. Proceed! Parts_Of_The_Person_res300_sm

Recently I have read a few amazing books on prayer that have challenged me.  It challenged my view of God.  God is a spiritual being, and he is not flesh like us.  We are flesh, but God created us flesh and souls with spirits.  I cannot be theological enough here to say I know how that all works out (the diagram above is created by Dallas Willard, and has served me greatly).

Sometimes, I try relating to God awaiting the right feeling and emotion, and it always fails.  I just know that I too often try relating to God while starting with my emotions, and I fail.  Then I try relating to God with my mind, and that humorously fails. Then I just try to learn more about the spirit, and that spirit is what was made perfect and blameless by God on the cross.  Now if that is the only part of me that is blameless, I have to learn how to come to grips with it.

I do not know how to describe that, but I do know it takes a lot of trust (faith); like more trust than anything in my life has ever required before.  As I strive to learn, I do know that when my spirit is engaged (another thing I don't have space to define here), I THEN feel closer to the heart of God.  That is because he is a spiritual being and that is the only way to be relational to him.  This is why I said that when I come to him in spirit, it often forms, changes, and engages my mind, my emotions and my flesh.

There is no way I have clarified anything for you. So what say you?

Breaking Jars

I sit in thought about the story of the woman who broke her alabaster jar for Jesus.  She brought and poured out something of great worth and long-saved value.  I have not really been thinking about it in the "give your ALL for Christ" mentality exactly.  I think a bit more of our call to love Christ in all our brothers and sisters around us. Now I have to wonder when was the last time I threw all caution to the wind in order to love someone...anyone around me?  When was the last time I forgot about proving points or convincing someone of the gospel through words and broke my alabaster jar instead?  When was the last time I did not just SAY, "You too are loved by God..." but actually thought it in my heart and then RELATED it to someone?

I also love the response of all the good Christian respectables around the woman.  These crazy people! (It's always easy to read a story and call people 'crazy' or 'outrageous' in Biblical stories instead of actually identifying ourselves with them).  They see this action as a giant waste...very reckless.  When was the last time I did something for someone else, which to everyone else would appear 'reckless' or 'wasteful' (you can waste more than money...like time...possessions...)

For I read this and know Jesus then says, "Leave her alone because people will be telling her story forever because SHE GETS IT!!"

So when was the last time I was reckless!

Forget that!

When is the NEXT time I WILL BE reckless!!

Thoughts on Loving in Spirit

spiritlove To love someone in spirit IS to love them despite what they do.  It sees THROUGH what they do and makes no conditions based on what they do.  Basically to love someone in spirit means that we see them as a child of God, blameless before God because of his Grace.

Imagine if I was blameless, never did things wrong and was thus worthy of great friendship from everyone.  It would be very easy for you to love me.  But that is because I would not have horrible things in your way.  I wouldn't have the habits you hate, the struggles you strike out against.  I wouldn't do things you hated.  Now if you see my habits, my struggles my flawed HUMANITY, it is harder to love me, but you're looking at the wrong thing.

The only reason God loves us unconditionally is because he doesn't even see the things WE base our conditions on.  God does not see my habits, struggles and flawed humanity.  He sees, "a little child who hasn't been loved enough and who has ceased growing because someone has ceased believing in me."  Now if I could love others that way, I love them in spirit because their flesh makes no difference to me.  I could care less about their flesh, their struggles, their habits, their hangups and flawed humanity. I love the child who needs someone to believe in him, the spirit who truly is blameless and incased in a flawed human flesh.

When I used to go Perkins in college (Oh how I miss Perkins), I purposefully never saw a waitress as a waitress.  I saw her as a person like me, not a person there to take my order, bring my food, end of transaction.  She was a person, a child like me who needed someone to believe in her and treat her that way.  I loved the Perkins waitress in spirit not flesh, because I did not care that one of them had been divorced 4 times, cussed like a sailor, and had three kids from different men.  But I do know that she wept in my arms one night when she was terrified and broken.  I loved a waitress in spirit instead of her flesh.

Poser Worship

fake "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." John 4:23-24

How often do I truly worship God in spirit and truth? This is the worshiper that God desires, and I wonder on a daily or weekly Sunday basis if I truly worship God in the fashion He seeks from me.

I may, if I am really on my game some days, worship God with my mind as I think about the things of God and this by no means is non-worship, but can I say I have engaged my spirit in moments of worship?

Have I allowed the very heart and core of myself be engaged to and with my worship? Have I been able to lay aside distraction and noise for even an hour on Sunday or a few minutes throughout the week for worship so that my spirit might fully engage with God, who is spirit?

Before I ever sit, stand, or arrive for worship have I prepared my heart, spirit, and will for worship? Can I pray beforehand with John Baillie, "God, grant me, I pray you, a clearer vision of your truth, a greater faith in your power, and a more confident assurance of your love."

What then of worshiping in truth? Can I say I have worshiped God in truth? When I worship God on a daily or weekly Sunday basis, do I do so in alētheia (truth), more than a factuality, but in sincerity? More than fact-checking the words I say, but can I say my heart is sincere in its worship?

I desire to be the sort of worshiper God seeks. That an all-knowing God must seek anything makes the thing he seeks truly hard to find. [Tweet That]

God, may you seek and find a sincere worshiper in me. May I worship you in spirit and not only in mind or empty words. May I not wait until Sunday but know that today and with my whole life I am to give you honor and praise from my spirit to yours with sincerity and honest desire.

Intimacy in the Brokenness

Sometimes I strive so hard at living with the most excellent virtue, in absolute piety, in "Christian perfection" of sorts that I become more and more strained, confined and closed in. We can be so dependent upon upholding the rules and expectations we place on ourselves that we forget the relationship we were intended for. I think of the comparison between the prodigal and his brother.  I think of the difference in the levels of intimacy with the father they both resemble.  I find that in his brokenness and humility, the prodigal experiences far greater intimacy with the father than does his sinless, pious and self-righteous brother.

The true site of the Christian disciple is one of a man or woman who is able to praise God for all things, including his own sin, he who is not obsessed with the perfect portrayal of self and spirituality.  She who is not complacent and shackled by a practical life.  He who strives more for the relationship than the rules and understands that he has, is and will fail but can realize that God expects more failure from him than he ever does from himself.  She who realizes we do not have to come groveling to God with a clear presentation of our sins and failures IN ORDER TO BE forgiven, but realizes the prodigal's father did not ask for an explanation, and Jesus did not ask the adulterous woman for an apology or confession.  The disciple realizes that we will not be judged now or in the end for our sins because we have already been judged and found not guilty, but that God desires we show up in his embrace and accept his love.