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I've been enjoying a few days off this week and on Tuesday, I took Denise and the kids to Wacky World so Jackson could jump around on the inflatables there.  We had a blast though there was a scary moment towards the end of our time there.  Thankfully Denise was feeding Anna Sloan in the car, so she didn't see it.  Jackson had just finished playing on an inflatable and was running to me to go on another one.  Of course he wasn't the only kid running around the place.  There were quite a few and no "bouncers" to tell them to slow down.  Well, one of the bigger kids, a girl probably 10 or 11, didn't see Jackson and she ran right into him and they collided.  It was a violent hit, like a wide receiver going across the middle of the football field and a defensive back hitting him and knocking him flat on his back.  That's what happened to Jackson.  I ran over there and he cried for a little bit and then shook it off and went back to playing.  The little girl felt bad and apologized and while I knew she didn't mean to knock my son over, she did.  What can I say, I'm a parent and I love my son. 

As I've been pondering that scene over and over in my mind, it gives me pause to think of the love our Heavenly Father has for us and how he hates to see sin "run us over" and "knock us off our feet."  Yes we may not have been running straight (I don't think Jackson was running straight when he got hit), but the impact still affects our Father.  He hates sin.  He hates what sin does to us.  He hates what sin has done to this world and all the good things he created.  He hated sin enough that he was willing to do something about it.  He sent His son, whom he loved as much as he loved himself, to defeat sin by living a perfect life and dying a perfect death and being raised to new life.  He did that for me.  He did that for you.  He did that for the "whole world."  What a love!  What a Father!

Lord, help me hate my sin and what it does to you and to those around me.

We've all heard the saying about about what happens when you assume something. This was brought home to me as I was meditating on a portion of Joshua 22. The chapter begins with Joshua thanking the Eastern tribes of Manasseh, Gad and Rueben for their faithfulness to God in keeping his commandments and to their fellow tribesmen in helping secure their inheritance of the promised land. He sends them off with God's blessing and as they head back to their lands, they stop at the Jordan River, which borders their land on the west. Before they cross over, they build "an altar of imposing size" without explanation. Word gets back to Joshua and the leaders that they have built this altar, and they are incensed because they think that these tribes have gone rogue and intend to offer unholy sacrifices to other gods. Israel gathers as one at Shiloh to go to war against their fellow tribesmen having just fought alongside of them as they occupied the land. A delegation is then sent, headed up by Phineas, to lay out the charges of apostasy and idolatry against the people. After all, there can only be one interpretation for why this altar was built. He then reminds them of what happened to Achan and his family because of his sin, which is that they all perished. "If you sin in this way," they say, "you will bring this onto all of their heads."

The response of the accused lets us know that nothing could have been further from their mind. "We built this altar because we're afraid that your children will cut off our children from the land because we are on the "wrong side" of the river. This altar is to bear witness that we are part of you and you are part of us." This altar was not built so that we might sin against God, but so that your children would not sin against our children by cutting them off. Wow. Talk about your gigantic misunderstandings. Can't you just see the whipped cream and pie filling oozing down their face?

Unfortunately for us, the question is not "how many of us have been guilty of doing this?" but "how often have we been guilty of doing this?" We often take a "shoot first, ask questions second" attitude when it comes to judging people's actions. Case in point - I was just talking to Denise on the phone and she was asking me to run an errand for her before lunch, which I replied in a few sentences that I couldn't. My answer was followed by dead silence because she was no longer on the phone. What do you think was my assumption? She hung up on me because I wouldn't run an errand for her when she needed me to. I called her back and come to find out, her phone cut out and she didn't even hear me say no. That's what we do! Someone says something to us or do something to us and we assume that it can only mean one thing, which is usually the worst thing. The gospel reminds us that we are lousy judges of people's hearts and motives, much less our own. The gospel doesn't necessarily mean that we assume the best about a person, but we presume that we may not have all the facts and that we should seek more answers. As for me, I need to confess my judgmental heart towards Denise.

What fun it was to serve alongside our folks from Grace Hill at Convoy of Hope's Hand of Hope. This Springfield-based relief organization sends needed supplies all over the country and the world when crisis strike. Our work wasn't complicated but incredibly gratifying. Thanks to all who were able to come out! We're going to make this a monthly event!

One of the realities that we are dealing with at Grace Hill is invisibility. Lord willing, we won't always be invisible, but for right now, we are invisible. One of the things we are trying to do as a core group is to be more visible. We have started going on prayer walks in the neighborhood surrounding Cherokee Middle School, where we hold services. Last Saturday, we handed out water bottles to walkers, joggers and strollers at Sequiota Park. At the end of the month we'll be serving down at Convoy of Hope helping pack boxes and take inventory of their relief supplies. All of these are ways in which we are trying to be seen. And yet even doing these things, we can still be invisible unless God opens the eyes of those around us and makes us visible.

It got me further thinking about King David. Last Sunday I began a summer series on the life of David and I was struck in my study of 1 Samuel 16, where David is anointed king, how invisible David was to his family, to Samuel and perhaps even to God. He was left to tend to the flock while the other brothers got to go to the sacrifical feast that Samuel was putting on, even though unbeknownst to him, he was the guest of honor. David's invisibility was hardly an obstacle for God to overcome, and Grace Hill's invisibility is hardly an obstacle for God to overcome, or our being Presbyterian for that matter, which I think is an obstacle for people down here. But surely even our being Presbyterian is not an obstacle to God.

As you pray for the work of Grace Hill, pray for our visibility and receptivity as we seek to love our fellow Springfieldians so that they can come alive to the wonder of God's grace. Pray that God would not only make us more visible, but that he would make his Son more visible through us.

I've been looking to do some social media advertising and was pleasantly surprised to learn that there were 145,000 FB users in the metro Springfield area (pop. 425,000).  I put the ad on FB last night and as of 6pm, we've had 45 people go to our website and look at Grace Hill Church.  Don't know if it will translate to people coming for worship, but it's definitely good to get more traffic to our website. 

The parable of the pharisee and tax collector in Luke 18 is a dagger in the heart for someone like me who likes to make a big deal about his righteousness. I like to be right. A lot. My righteousness has many different faces. I have parenting righteousness which means that I raise Jackson and Anna Sloan the right way. I have music righteousness which means that I only listen to the right kind of music. I have merging-traffic righteousness which means that I merge when I first see the signs to get over. Space does not permit for me to list the rest, but you get the idea. The ugly result of this kind of righteousness is that my parenting righteousness, music righteousness and merging-traffic righteousness cause me to look down on and hold people who don't follow my righteousness in contempt. That's what the Pharisee did to the tax collector and the others who didn't share his same level of righteousness. It's no wonder that his righteousness was an ugly one and unacceptable to Jesus, much to the shock of those who held the Pharisees in high esteem. The only righteousness that is truly pleasing and beautiful before God is Jesus' righteousness. It's the only righteousness that we should boast in and look to. The Bible talks about our righteousness, our good deeds, as filthy rags...unsightly and unusable. Lord, help me to see, like the tax collector, my sin and my need for mercy. Help me not to trust in my righteousness but in Christ's.