Update Time

It has been a good fall so far. Next week I will be on vacation, which will consist of going on a UTM fall retreat and then heading to the Appalachian mountains for a few days for a personal retreat (hopefully with a close friend of mine feeling much of the same things I am). I would go visiting, but I really feel God calling me to prayer. I need to listen. I need to praise. I need to change. There has been so many things that have been challenging me lately, and it's like I'm really being called to something deeper. I need to changed my comfortableness, fear and indifference for courage and love. I need to be broken. Not that anything is going bad, it's not. I just see some places that I so quickly buy into shallowness and superficiality. I want to learn to speak to deeper needs and not give easy answers to things. I want to be more perceptive. I need to be less selfish and more encouraging. I live and love too much on the surface afraid to go deeper. As C.S. Lewis says I am far too easily satisfied with much less than the Lord has for me. I follow the call of lovers so much less wild. I sell God short on the promises He has for me. I need to reorient and refocus.

So this is what I've been thinking about the last month or so. I want to teach my kids to live and grow in faith, not religion.

But through it all I can see that God is doing a good work in me. I pray that He is doing the same in my family and in my youth group.

Jason, I hope you read this. I tried to use the e-mail address I had for you but it didn't work. Please e-mail me at timspain@gmail.com. I'd love to catch up with you.

Let me know if there is anything I need to pray for. And not just surface things, the deep things of the heart. E-mail me or post. I am interested in your spiritual well-being. Mike Cope mentioned in a sermon one time that if you listen to our prayers it seems the most pressing thing in our lives, nation, and church is that our second cousin is sick. I appreciate the sentiment. There are deeper things going on than physical discomfort. There are bigger issues than health. Of course as I say that, I have a mom in my congregation that is going through breast cancer. I will be praying for that too.