Fast Asleep

Emma is fast asleep in her bed. She'll wake up every once in a while because she is coughing a bit today. Her sleeping and me restlessly going from the tv to the computer to the kitchen (avoiding housework of course) got me thinking. How many times in our Christian walks to we go to sleep while the rest of the world is bustling around us?

Even my lazy antics of avoiding the laundry and cleaning up all Emma's toys is nothing compared to Victoria working in the Hermann Pediatric ER tonight. It is 10:30 pm and she has another 8 and a half hours to go. Compared to the needs she is dealing with and the stress of the ER, I may as well be asleep right now!

Whenever I am stressed, what do I do? I fall asleep. If you ever see me really tired, avoid me at all costs because I am usually on the verge of being so stressed out that I could snap at any moment! As I lazily type on the computer, God has placed a burden in my life to wake up spiritually and not miss what is happening around me.

How much do we miss out on when we are asleep? Whenever I am home really late from a practice or gig of some sort, I come home and 98% of the time, Victoria is still up. She can't stand the fact that she might miss something if I'm awake. Perhaps that is why I am still awake as well. Don't get me wrong, I will NOT be staying awake until 7 am when Victoria gets home.

Are you simply walking with your spiritual eyes closed? Speaking only for myself--yes! How many people do I come into contact with at work, at the store, even good friends who have needs that go deeper than a casual conversation that I am so willing to give? I have heard it said how superficial we are as Christians when we are at church and someone asks how we are doing and we simply say "fine". There is always a call and charge to have deeper relationships that go further than the fine response but are we even aware of other's fine responses? How many fines do we hear daily and not even take the time to look in their eyes and see that their fine is the furthest thing from reality?

Romans 12:15 says that we are to "rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." How can we expect to do that if we are sleeping? Sometimes I let my own issues cloud my mind so much that when I sleep, I cannot wake up to hardly anything. Emma could be making noise, there could be a storm outside my window, and the cats could be breaking all the glasses on the table and I can sleep and deeply as if I were in a cave in the middle of no where. That is the same as Christians who are asleep. There are people who are rejoicing and we walk right past them and do not encourage their joy, rather we simply hear their fine and assume all is normal in their lives. There are also people who are mourning and we sit next to them on the pew for a hour and a half at church on a Sunday morning and don't even think to look to our right or left and notice how they cannot even muster an ounce of joy in order to sing two words of the worship that morning. Instead, we simply shake their hand when we are told and give them a friendly "have a good week" as we wait impatiently for them to gather their Bibles and children so they can allow us to exit the pew.

The biggest challenge I faced in the 6th grade other than all the other 6th graders was to memorize James 1:19-27. (Christian school of course) Every once in a while I remember something it said and it just now makes sense to me. In verse 22 it says not to simply listen to the word and forget, but to do it. God commands us in Romans to rejoice and mourn with our fellow believers. God usually doesn't suggest things for us to do. He didn't say for us to sort of like Jesus and kind of do the 10 Suggestions. God demands faith and commitment. A part of that is to obey His Word.

How can we do that if we are spiritually sleeping? Simply put--we can't.

We need to wake up our souls and truly ask God to allow us to see needs and to be compassionate about our fellow believers. Mankind is hurting. We are to be Jesus to the people we see daily. Jesus did not sleep when there was a need. We read that his disciples did and He was saddened. He needs us to stay awake with Him. There is a lost and dying world that needs faith. Faith in Christ. Faith in God. Faith in the Holy Spirit producing a stirring in them that will ultimately change their lives.

Coffee usually keeps me up for at least 30-45 minutes when I need it to. I pretend that it wakes me up, but truly I just like the flavor. For others, I've heard, if they have coffee after 6 pm they will be awake for another 8 hours. The mission God has given us of making disciples should be that triple shot of espresso in our spiritual cups! As cheesy as that sounds, there has to be something that urges us to persevere. If nothing moves us to stay awake for the lost, then we need to reevaluate our closeness to our Savior. He hasn't gone anywhere. He is still the same as He was yesterday and is the same He promised He will be tomorrow. The desire to see the Holy Spirit use us to plant a seed, help someone understand something in the Scripture, or even to accept Christ as Lord should keep us awake!

Allow God to use whatever He needs in order for us to stay awake. Ask Him to make you uncomfortable. Pop-culture Christianity would phrase it to take you out of your comfort zone but even that is a comfortable way of saying it. God, mess me up! Make my focus solely on You so that none of me clouds my path and puts me to sleep!

You Are For Me

Currently Kari Jobe is singing in my office. "So faithful, so constant...You fill me, You see me, You know my every move, You love for me to sing to You.......I know that You are for me"

What in the world? She is singing like a crazy person. Who is this God that He is for me? For me doing what? If He truly knew me, He certainly wouldn't be as for me as she is singing about! Paul's claim that he was the chief of sinners is a stretch at the moment. I am fairly sure that we are tied. Even when I feel like there is no way God will be "for me" I am surprised by Him.

I am glad to have a surprising God! I enjoy giving my wife surprises--she does not enjoy them as much because they usually involve her needing to adjust the month's budget. Even those surprises are usually in response to something wonderful that she has done. Flowers for a special day. A card when she is on call saying I miss her. An extravagant gift for a birthday or anniversary. Even a homemade, Jody Smith exclusive, project that usually requires me messing up the house in order to make it better when she has had a rough month in her residency program. All these things can be explained--God cannot be explained! He surprises me with his devotion to His children when they desert Him. He sacrifices His one and only son when His people are the ones who willingly crucify Him. He guides and directs our paths when we want nothing but to grab the wheel and go where we please. And He blows my mind when I read in Zephaniah that my God delights over me with singing!

Our God is faithful and just to cleanse us from our unrighteousness, our sin, and our blatant disobedience. Why? Why does the creator of everything we know and more things we don't know continue to choose to love us? It is His choice that we are the recipients of His love. This is not a love He gives as though we were simply buddies, or even that we were lovers who go through rough patches. He chooses to love us with His agape love. This unconditional love is that of a father with his child. My daughter is just one year old and I can see even now that she has a sin nature. She will hit me in the face and decide that it is not nap time even when I am trying to rock her to sleep. She does not know right from wrong yet, but still shows desire to do the wrong. I do not set her on the floor and say, "You hit me in the face. I choose not to love you right now. I'll provide you a warm room to sleep in and food, but I do not guarantee any affection or any spiritual or emotional provision." I simply move her arm and continue to tell her that I love her and I attempt to quiet her. Zephaniah once again says that God quiets us with His love. There is something comforting in the fact that our God will quiet us with His agape love.

Kari Jobe is singing that He knows us, and STILL he is for us. He knows our sin and He forgives it faithfully. He knows our selfish desires and still waits for us to seek His face and know His will. He knows our fickle, fallen, human characteristics and behavior and still He chooses to love us without conditions. He knows all of that and is still for us. He is for us succeeding, seeking Him, being loved, loving, and experiencing all He has for us through His son.

I pray that God will never forsake us in our weaknesses and that we will realize that seeking His face will result in a life-changing faith. Faith in God begins at our surrender. Surrendering who we are in our own selves and holding on to God's purpose for us which is to know Him more and to make Him known among the nations.

God remind us of who You are!

~jody

Inspiration

I have been inspired to write again! I am ashamed to say I haven't written in this thing in 9 months!!! That is forever. I probably have WAY too much to say and it is WAY too late to say any of it. Just that I am back to writing again.

Emma just turned 1 and right after, Victoria and I went on a trip to Ireland. In case this is the only place you read about my life (which I doubt) that is the latest. I feel like I am in a good place with God. I finally feel like I am on the right path. Whether or not I am going at the pace God wants me to go, we shall see.

I promise to write more soon! As for now, my bed awaits!

~Jody

Good Band Chat!!!

So tonight after band practice with Second Baptist the guys headed over to Sonic for some slushes and some conversation.  It was cool!  We were talking about whether music (good/bad--"Christian"/"Non-Christian") had influenced us.  The basic consensus--yes and no!  

First with the no.  One of the guys made the point that music is a gift from God.  The main difference between a Christian and Non-Christian musician is that one is thankful for the gift and the other is clueless as to the fact that they have a gift.  God blessed humans with this crazy thing called music but He also graced our population with minds that are creative.  Skyscrapers, art in the Louvre, a beautifully handcrafted desk (no, not just the one I'm typing on) are all things that God has given to people through their creativity.  It is the job of Christians to be thankful for that gift and to lead others to the same conclusion.  

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When people are given a plethora of choices when it comes to music, when they are not guided to the quality of good musicality, they just pick something that makes them feel.  Not feel good or bad--just feel.  People want to have the connection of feeling with others am I right?  When someone commits suicide, it's because they lost feeling and lost hope and a connection with their world around them, thus they end their connection to a "feelingless" society.   With music, if someone wants to feel happy or upbeat or just plain alive, they turn on the tunes, whether or not it is "good".  The point was also made that even before you've heard of an artist, people might say you remind them of that artist.  That is because music is a universal gift.  Reminiscent of the "nothing new under the sun" thought process.  While I totally agree with this, I have a slight twist on this which may cause a dilemma in your soul.

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When I was a sophomore in college, I decided to major in speech communications.  To this day, I still do not know why I did this.  I knew that I enjoyed it and I had a passion about almost every class that I took in this major.  At HBU, we had to have two majors so the second may come as a slight shocker.  I went from music to english to...Christianity (boring churchy answer I know).  I knew that God had called me into ministry of some sort, but I didn't know what kind of ministry.  I still struggle with that today, but I knew I needed to develop everything I could in order to be most useful to God.  

In Homiletics (preaching class), I learned how to research scripture, how to deliver a meaningful and power sermon, but also that different people have different ways of getting a message across.  Some of the students would be very factual, to the point of near boredom.  Others would be so funny that I would almost miss their point.  But the majority would have a passion for the scripture that they were preaching on.  This passion was displayed through their homilies either by the tone of their voice, choice of words, detail of research, or simply by the unashamed love of the Lord that shone brightly on their faces!  

I was reminded of this tonight in our chat that, while different genres of music may provide a different feel for a song or evoke a certain emotion, music is, in essence, an expression of passion.  Being exposed to different kinds of music may give you a varied background stylistically, however, the ultimate goal of music should not just be to give thanks to God for the gift, but to grab a hold of someone's passion and raw expression of this blessing!!

Next 4 years!!!

So the Medial School Nation wide match day was today. That is where you rank schools you interview at and they rank you and you...match. Victoia got her number 1 choice which was UT Houston! This means that no realtors will need to be notified that our house is for sale! We are thrilled that we are staying here and that she matched with a great school.

In other news, I remodeled the kitchen and my daughter will be born in a little over a month! Yeah, what other kinds of life change can we go through at once?!?

~Jody

Book Post

Here are a couple of excerpts from my book...that is no where NEAR finished!

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Being here next to my wife I wonder, how did I get here? How do we manage to have a decent relationship? Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had our battles and our down times, but currently, I am content. I have two jobs that provide me what I need to pay our bills. I often wonder what the financial circumstances of authors who write billions of good books or that author who writes a couple of amazing books happen to be. They always seem to write about their trips and adventures and how they used to have hard times. I am in the midst of my simple life and yet I find myself content. I go to a rather large church here in Houston, and I work in the music ministry and with that, the calling of my life, I realize my contentment. Is that enough? Is contentment what I have been placed on this earth to achieve?

John says in Revelation chapter three that we are not to be lukewarm Christians. This has been a struggle verse for me all of my life. Water in the time John was writing, just like today, was good when it was hot for the obvious reasons of cooking and killing bacteria--things my mother might think of. Practically growing up in my dad’s office in the church, I always thought it meant if you weren’t on fire for God, He would rather you not even be a Christian so you wouldn’t push people away from Christianity or lead them astray. They probably wouldn’t know such a churchy word like “astray” in the first place. I have come to realize that cold water can be a refreshing sense of newness on a hot summer day and a cool breeze in the humidity that I have come to loath in the heart of southeast Texas. God calls us to be either on fire Christians--telling everyone we know about Him--or cool refreshing Christians--cool breezes for people in a dry, mundane life. Where does me finding myself content with where I am in life come into play? I associate contentment more with complacency and a lukewarm lifestyle rather than what God has called me to--a courageous life of forgiveness and love.

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Like I was taught in church, meekness does not equal weakness. It is a simple ironic twist in understanding God’s desire for the molding of our hearts that the two words rhyme. If every young girl’s fantasy, other than becoming Hannah Montana’s best friend, is to be a princess, then I would guarantee that the little boy’s dream would be to ride his shining white horse to slay a dragon and save the princess. Either that or drive his awesome muscle car to the beach and save a dolphin while playing legos with his brothers, though that may have just been my dream. Imagine, if you will, the little boy’s massive white steed. A stallion of that size could do whatever it wants, but because of the bridle, or meekness, its power is controlled and used as the master requires. God desires for men to have power and strength, otherwise He would not have created muscles that can grow when they are pushed and torn, or gyms for that matter. Christ demonstrated the ultimate example of meekness on the cross. While He suffered and bled, at any moment He could have stretched his finger and wiped out half the globe and called thousands of angels down to escort Him from the cross. He chose to display meekness and expose his love and caring heart for His people.

The caring heart of a shepherd is also demonstrated when that lion or wolf comes to steal one of their sheep. They get out their sling and stones or staff and kill the beast before it even has the chance to think about their sheep. I knew you couldn’t wait for the display of manly brawn and the brute strength part. . . . . .

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Thus ends my excerpts. I wanted to end it before it got too exciting so you'd have to come back for more. I hope you enjoyed them and got something out of them. It is a book for guys (or whoever wants to read it) that looks at a few characters in the Bible to discover the tenderness, meekness, and the caring heart God wants us to have. I'll put more up for discussion later on.

~Jody

Oh wife...

...So Victoria is sick today. She had this major exam for the Medical Examiners Board something or anther but she got very sick this morning. I was super late to work and she had to lay in bed all day and miss her exam. She is doing better now, but it was touch-and-go for a while...and by touch-and-go, I mean she took naps. So other than that, normal day. I have a dentist appointment Thursday where I'll get 3 cavities jacked and 1 crown put in...blah! After that, we have a baby appointment on Friday. So pretty much that is the plan fr this week. That's all.

~Jody