A weekend post

It's unusual, really, for me to post on the weekend. I have small kids, and the weekend is family time no matter what. This weekend my son helped me tend the yard, which is a new thing for him, and we played baseball (he drove in a run, and made the play at second for the first time).

That's a pretty good saturday, if you ask me.

But why bring it up? You know: my wife doesn't want me talking about our family on the blog because we don't want to be "famous" in the pejorative sense. All the blog stuff -- the arguments, the critiques, the jokes, whatever -- are fine, but we want to live a real life and not a staged life which has to correspond to the preconceptions of others. If I want to write, and it fills up the blog, that's fine: I'm just not going to make what happens at our house the subject of some kind of blog version of reality TV.

That said, I have something to say about the life I have right now -- and if I was smart, I'd take my own advice and avoid making a "this is where I am right now" post for the good of my readers, and for mine. But here's the thing: I think it is relevant to whoever you are, so I'm going to let you have it.

About 15 years ago, I was living in the basement of my parents' house, and I was no longer an atheist. I had read the book of John, and some other scraps of the NT, and I was (as I would reckon right now) "saved" and trusting Christ to forgive me based on my confession to Him that I was a filthy sinner, but I was a pretty lousy Christian. I'm not even sure I would have called myself a Christian at that point, but in the theological sense I surely was -- even if my theology was pathetic and sloppy.

Back then, I did a lot of things that I was good at, and that I enjoyed -- and as I look at my life today, I have given almost all of it up. Except for speaking in English and wearing clothes, and some sins which I'd rather not discuss today, I have a hard time thinking of anything I did 15 years ago which I still do today -- and that includes the things I did well.

You know, for instance, 10 years ago I made almost twice as much money as I make today. I had more direct reports and more responsibility at work. I managed a business with annual sales of about the same size as the company I work for right now. A lot more people had to actively respect me -- fwiw, that's when I picked up the internet handle "centuri0n". I had a new car. I had a lot of hobbies. I was, as they say, "promotable". I was going someplace -- at least, that's what a lot of people thought.

If I compared what I was then to what I am right now, I'll bet that I could find a lot of reasons to say that I am really a failure -- I'm going backwards. Somehow, God is punishing me or something because I haven't been able to keep all those really cool things He gave me back then.

But here's the bizarre thing: I think I'm better off today. Making half the money, working for someone else, sort of dead-ended in my job, I am better off today. I am better of because I am closer to Christ than I was 10 or 15 years ago. I see Him more clearly today. I lean on Him and He is more precious to me today than back then. What I have today is beautiful rather than complicated or sophisticated, and it is satisfying rather than expansively-consuming.

God willing that the same happens to you and yours. God has been a blessing to me in spite of the money and the authority. Seek Him first, and His righteousness, and the other stuff will be given to you -- and you really will see it as other stuff rather than the most precious thing on Earth.