Thank God For Wednesdays

Dear Wednesday,

I think we need to talk. Knowing you all this time has been great. You're a blast, and you've always been there for me. I treasure your friendship.

But lately I can't help but find myself attracted to you.

Okay, I was planning on riding that joke out longer, but I think its had its time, let's move on and explain.

Yesterday was a pretty great day. I got up butt early and dragged myself to a gym I don't usually go to, because there was a weapons instructor teaching Eskrima knife techniques. Sweet right?!

Blah blah skip time to meeting with Jenn at 1:30. We ended up spending about 10 minutes covering what happened with my old job and all that ridiculous crap, and then spent the rest of the two hours talking theology and ministry. Oh how I wish I got to do stuff like that more often.

We talked a little about the future of CAKE, and possibilities of what's happening there. She lamented about the decline in numbers from a year ago. She said that at the Thanksgiving celebration last year they had 120 people. That's huge.

At some point while Jenn was talking, I had the sudden urge to be more involved in CAKE. I just felt it as this sudden draw, which I decided to ask her about since I'd never really felt the urge to do much more there than go on Wednesday nights and hang out with people. So I asked her about it and we both agreed to be in prayer. We'll see where that goes. She also asked me to lead at least two Wednesday nights coming up in the next little while. One will be on H. R. Niebhur's Christ and culture types, and the other will be on the Wesleyan Quadralateral. I'm very excited about it, and have already started looking for my books, all three of which have been lent and dissappeared, so I'll be getting new copies.

Similarly, I still don't know where God wants me, but I'm getting ideas. This place still does not feel like home, but I'm thinking of chilling and putting in for Vandy div, 'cause that's still pretty snobby right? It could work. And they have some program.

I also sometimes think of just trying to move places where I know people I love are. Like moving wherever dear Glenn is, because he's great. Or others.

So what this kind of looks like is me going ahead and starting down the road of teaching, even though I'm not sure I'm ready yet, in terms of actually being able to get hired. But hey, community colleges suck, so maybe I could teach at one of those. I've also become fairly enamored with my big writing idea. Like to the point I'm looking over old papers to see what I can submit to certain magazines (Christianity Today and . . . what else I'm not sure).

So then last night I showed up at CAKE, and as soon as I'm in the door Adam grabs me and pulls me out in the hall. He invites me to be an iguide. Godwhy does this thing called the icampus, which is a way for people to be involved in the church, without being there. While there are some obvious glaring problems with that, it does have a lot to offer. It begins with a 30 minute show before the services, and then the services are run streaming online. During all this there is a chat room up and running. The iguide is the Godwhy representative there to help moderate the discussion and answer any questions that people have. Needless to say I'm very excited about being a part of that.

Then last night Luke grabs me after CAKE and invites me to go with him and Tyler, after our first venture dead ended due to an early closing, we decided to go to a local coffeehouse. Earlier in the night Luke told me how he'd recently met someone I'd gone to high school with. Luke mentioned that he knew me from church, which surprised the guy. He said I'd never seemed like the church type, and always seemed like a "smart-ass" in high school. So true.

Anyhow, turns out this guy, whom we'll call Brice, was there last night. He and I got started talking and almost immediately he said he'd heard I had become "a big Christian bible guy." Luke turns and laughs and says, "hey, I just told him you and I went to church together." So I knew it was going to be an interesting conversation.

His first question was to ask me what had happened. I'm fairly sure already this guy is not a Christian, and so I've got a choice about how I handle it. How much do I say? How religious do I talk? And then I just went for it.

I told him about having gotten hooked up with a church my freshman year, but how it didn't mean anything to me. And then the summer before my senior year of high school I was on a trip and I heard God speak to me and call my name. And I just said it like it was nothing. To this presumably hostile atheist. Word freaking up for the big brass ones eh?

So we end up talking for at least an hour or so. Talking about how he lost his faith, and what had happened in his life. He reminisced over what I was like in high school, and I had to inform him that bad as it was, it wasn't even everything. Told him what all that was too.

It was so good to connect with this guy. To talk to him and just let him see something different, in so many ways. It was good to get him laughing and to hear about where he'd been and how it effected him. Mostly it was good to know he was seeing something he hadn't seen before. And to really mean it.

And that, my friends, is what awesome Wednesdays are made of.

So what now? Well, lots of stuff. I feel great, but I still have areas where I'm waiting on God to reveal Himself and call me and say "come here, go there, do this". But I'm happy. I'm practicing spiritual discipline in terms of private study and worship. Things are good.

Heads up, I'm going to start doing some of those academic posts I promised. I promise.

She smelled like beef jerky, and she had a beautiful singing voice

Alright, I'll admit it, I need to get back in the habit of writing more often. I'm so far behind its not even funny. Let's get it on.

I really should figure out a way to take advantage of this gift I have. I showed up to Kairos a little bit later than I like and chose a sit still down in front, but off to one side. So I'm sitting there by myself, being a putz and not talking to anyone. And time keeps winding down. And then this ridiculously attractive blond walks up and says, "Hey, is anybody sitting there?" pointing at the seat next to me. Well no, the whole row is available. Nearly the whole section is, so I politely reply. "Well good, then I'm gonna be your buddy for tonight." She then introduces me to her two friends, and I'm really not sure which of them was most attractive. Is it really any wonder that I haven't sought out anyone to go to Kairos with me? This happens every single week. Unfortunately there wasn't much going on there. This girl kept checking her phone every ten minutes, in her active sports top and Von Dutch hat. Clearly not my type. But its the idea of it. Its like a law of nature. If Zach Frank goes to Kairos by himself, attractive girls will sit next to him. And possibly in front of and behind as well.

While its enjoyable at a certain level, and I feel there is some potential of making money from it, it is ultimately dissatisfying. I'm still praying to end up with a tight group of guys. And I'm still just not the type to go hitting on random girls, or even only partially random ones. I suppose it could be worse though.

Perhaps the most interesting part however, is that as soon as this girl walked up I could smell this very distinctive smell. Beef Jerky. And good gosh do I like beef jerky. I was really kind of mystified as to how this was possible. I decided to text some of my funniest friends to see what responses I would get, and to let them know. So here's how it went down:

My original text: "Sitting next to a really attractive blonde who smells a little like beef jerky."

1st response: "ask her what's for dinner"

2nd: "maybe she's a sales rep for Slim Jim"

3rd: "marry her"

4th: "find a dog and see what happens"

Brilliant.

So on with the meat. Tuesday night was great. For the second week in a row the worship and the minor prayer interlude had me in light tears. Which is absolutely amazing. Reaching that kind of closeness and openness with God. Not really sad tears, just . . . tears.

Mike began a series on Isaiah and . . . . I just stopped to back over my notes because I couldn't remember the main point of the message. And while I can kind of tell you what it was, that won't tell you anything. He was talking about worship, and three of the elements of story arches with God. And its crazy, because I took pretty good notes. I listened the whole time, and I was engaged and feel like I got a lot out of it. But I can't really tell you what the unifying message was. Rest assured it was good. There are lots of little element points I got out, but in the end it just was.

::sigh:: Okay, let's talk about the obligatory Heather related crap, for which I apologize. So since I last wrote things had just pretty much continued, really missing her, blah, blah. Almost crying over dinky stupid stuff. It seemed that almost every night I was fighting back tears as I lie down to go to sleep. Fan-tastic.

So the other night it was just miserable and I remembered I had this old cheesy book called "When God Writes Your Love Story." Yes, the authors are nerds. And nerdy ones at that. Yes its cheesy both in content and tone. But for some reason I just needed to read it. So I started. The real theme of the first 3 chapters was pretty simple. Just turn it over to God. Which is . . . so simple and obvious that you'd never think to do it.

So I just did it. Which is odd because I'd really thought myself in that place before. But I think while I was ready for wherever God led it, I wanted to be doing something, or having something happening. What they authors (husband and wife team) were suggesting was a completely hands off approach. I'm still not totally convinced, but I'm doing it, and I'm experiencing some form of peace. Certainly far more than I was before. So that's good.

The only mitigating thing left is something that's happened the last two weeks at Kairos. During the guided prayer times there's been a portion where we were supposed to listen to God. The first time we were told to imagine ourselves before the throne. So I did. I pictured myself kneeling there right before God. And much to my surprise, I saw her kneeling beside me, holding my hand. I tried to dismiss it. Tried to just be alone. No dice. Tried to replace her. Didn't work. So I just forgot about it. But it happened this past Tuesday again, during the guided prayer time. Same kind of thing. I won't even repeat what I thought I heard 'cause its just ridiculous.

So I've given it all over. I'm hands off unless I'm told to do otherwise. But I've been here before and I know how it turned out, so we'll see. Conversely, since this I've found myself attracted to these two girls. Neither of which I can have anything to do with. We'll see how that works out. I just want to be an oblivious stoic. Oh well.

And right now that's where everything ends up. Just keep remembering Jesus is on the throne. Just keep putting Him back there if you ask Him to move. Its the only way to get anywhere.