People who know me know that I am a pretty laid back guy. I don’t get excited about very much and it takes a lot throw me off. I’m basically a pretty boring guy. One of the things I do get excited about is my faith in God and looking at everything God has done for me.
I have not always lived a Christian life. Oh, I went to church every Sunday and spent a lot of time working at the church events, but my life outside of that didn’t always line up with what I was doing on Sunday. I look back at that part of my life and I get excited. I get excited to see how God worked in my life and in the lives of those around me to bring me through those times and build a stronger relationship and faith in God than before.
I remember when I was in college and broke. Many months I not only did not know how I was going to pay next months rent, I didn’t know what I was going to eat tomorrow. Every time, God provided exactly what I needed when I needed it. Sometimes it was a meal with a family from church, sometimes it was a chance to go mix for a band on the rare night I didn’t happen to have a paper to write. I get excited to see God’s timing an blessings all through my life. The good times and the better times. When you are excited about the love and mercy of God, there really are no bad times. Life is all what you decide it is going to be.
I remember when Juliette and I were newly married. We went through some tough financial times. We had two cars, but usually only one of them was running on any given day. The home health agency I was working for went bankrupt. I was given three days notice to discharge or hand off all of my patients to another agency. Not only was I out of a job but I did not get paid for my entire last month of work. That was a huge financial set back that took a little while to recover from. But even then, we always had exactly what we needed when we needed it. I get excited thinking about those times. Walking to Blockbuster Video and getting a 99 cent movie rental, stopping at the Stop & Go for a 59 cent big gulp on the way home. Walking back to the apartment and popping a 25 cent bag of microwave popcorn and for less than $2, my wife and I had a date night and enjoyed a movie at home. Financially things were a bit rough, but it didn’t bother us because we knew we were doing what we needed to be doing and that God would supply all of our needs.
I get excited about seeing God’s goodness in the lives of people around me. I can’t imaging trying to live life outside of the love of God. Without the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, what are we doing here? My faith and my hope in Jesus gives me my excitement and reason to do everything that I do. I do not work for money. Don’t get me wrong, I do like to get paid for the work that I do and, if my boss would decide to stop paying me, I would decide to stop working for that particular company. I do like to get paid. But I do not work for money. There has to be a deeper reason. I love mixing for bands when I have the time. Sometimes, at the end of the night they hand me my check for the show and I have forgotten that I’m actually getting paid to do this. (Any of you band folks reading this… don’t get any ideas.)
But I think one thing we are missing in many of our churches and in our Christian lives is that excitement. There are a few churches that I love to visit that have tons of excitement and the deep teaching to go along with it. That combination seems to be pretty difficult to find. We need to be alive in Christ. I look around and I don’t see a lot of that life. We need to wake up and open up our eyes to all the things around us that God has created and that God has done for us and get excited. We seem to have learned to focus on everything that is wrong. We have the Joy of the Lord… or at least we are supposed to. The Joy of the Lord is my strength. We read it. We sing it. But do we live it?
