First, the disclaimer.

I realize that my posts are few and far between and I apologize for this. I never really considered myself to be much of a writer, even though I’d love to author a book one day. I’ve always felt like I’ve communicated better through speaking. However, I do enjoy writing and trying to form my thoughts into digital ink to be distributed into a sea of faceless names. It’s also exciting to see when you guys comment on something I’ve written. I really appreciate it and it warms my heart (and probably boosts my ego) to see that I’ve connected with someone I’ve never met.

All this to say, please forgive me and I’ll try my best to write more regularly.

On to the Seder.

If you’re a Christian and you’ve never participated in a Seder dinner you’re really missing out (not that I’ve been doing it for years – we just had our first one on Wednesday). If you’re not sure what it is, it’s just a fancy name for the Passover dinner. For a more thorough description, head over to Wikipedia and read their brief article.

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I just got back from Africa.

I spent two weeks with a team from my church (RockHarbor) working in Uganda. It was an incredible experience and definitely one I will not soon forget. Before I left, I was extremely expectant that God would reveal Himself in amazing ways to us. I wanted nothing short of miracles–supernatural healings, unexplainable phenomena, the casting out of demons...those sorts of things. I really wanted Him to pull out all the stops and show this western-thinking evangelical what He could really do.

It didn't happen that way. There were no special effects, no one rose from the dead, and the Nile River didn't turn to blood. Yet I learned something very important on that trip...although God definitely still moves in huge, supernatural ways, He is most often found in the quite, unassuming, intimate moments. The ones that we pass over too quickly. The ones that we ignore because they're not big enough or they don't make us look like super-Christians.

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I've been mulling over a sermon that my pastor, Mike Erre, gave a few months ago (look up his blog...he's a swell guy). Anyway, he was talking about how as Christians, we have the freedom to claim truth wherever we find it. All truth is God's truth, and since we are the children of God, we can claim it as our own. It's an amazing and liberating concept (there's a chapter about this in Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell). One of the examples Mike gave was of a song by Linkin Park called "In the End". Now, Linkin Park is a secular band, yet this song is basically a rewrite of Ecclesiastes...anything you strive for on this earth is essentially meaningless and unfulfilling. As a Christian, I can claim this song as proclaiming God's truth (whether or not it was the intention of the band). It got me thinking about what other songs by secular bands (those not signed to Christian labels or part of the CCM scene) also contain spiritual truths that resonate within me whenever I listen to them. I've listed a few below off the top of my head and I hope you all can add some more to the list. If you get a chance, listen to the songs...Google the lyrics...find the truth within and claim it as yours.

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As I sat here trying to think of what to write for my first blog (ever, by the way), I figured that a good place to start would be a summary of what I've been discovering over the past few years. Puzzle pieces. Let me explain...

Do you remember how annoying/frustrating/humbling it was as a kid to be working on a huge puzzle and none of the pieces seemed to match? Especially if you were working on a section of, say, a sky where everything was blue and there was no reference to anything else? Come on, I'm not the only one. Then you'd try and start cramming two pieces together as hard as you could only to discover that they weren't supposed to go together and now they were all tweaked and messed up? Work with me here.

I've found that life has been like that recently...actually, probably longer, I just never realized it. I've also come to believe that God uses puzzle pieces in real life, only instead of being made of cheap cardboard, they're made of situations, choices, and trials that come our way. There have been so many times in my life that I've looked back on a situation and seen how God was orchestrating different areas of my life to come into sync at one amazing moment. Yet, as I was stuck in the middle of it, it only seemed as if these strange puzzle pieces were being thrown at me and none of them fit with the others. It was only later that I could step back and see that there was a corner here, a middle piece there, an edge down there.

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