Day 2

First Sunday away. Got to sleep till 7:30. Awesome. Went to Grace Community Church in Newton at 9:30.

The pastor spoke on Grace vs Works out of James 2. It is a subject I have been thinking a lot about this weekend. If you got 10 minutes, take a look at this link from YouTube about obedience . Our faith is dead without works. Like a corpse in a casket without a soul. That's powerful stuff.

Which leads me to admitting that I mowed my yard today. Not only did my grass need it, but I also had like a million of those little helicopter seed things in my yard. I thought long and hard about whether I should mow or not. I've never mowed on Sunday. Like never-ever. When my dad was a pastor in Hillsboro, I remember walking with him on a Sunday past a neighbor's yard were a member of our church lived. The neighbor said, "Don't look at me working." Funny the stuff that sticks with you.

What does it mean to keep the Sabbath holy? For the past 7 1/2 years I have worked on Sunday. At church by 7:30 am, Sunday school, service, a youth leader lunch meeting, an afternoon board meeting, to small group in the evening. For the most part I quit playing board games with my friends on Sunday night because I was so tired. Usually I tried to sneak in an afternoon nap and if I was lucky, could even sleep 2-3 hours. In the past year my counselor has been working with me to make Monday (my day off) into my Sabbath. Spending time resting and focusing on God rather than continueing the rat race. It has helped me to love Monday mornings: coffee with dad, then sitting in the hammock reading the paper, working on the crossword and completing the Sudoku. Sometimes even conquering the Jumble.

But back to today. I got up at 7:30 rather than be at church at 7:30. I was refreshed by the worship hour rather than leading it. I wasn't tired this afternoon. And I love to mow. I mean I really love to mow. So I mowed. And loved it. While I was mowing, I did wonder if anyone one from church would see me. Then I heard my neighbor down the street mowing. Made me wonder if he was concerned someone was judging him for mowing on Sunday. Now what I'm going to say next is wrong, but I got to be honest, I thought, "Well, I've seen him smoking, so he probably isn't even a Christian." Pretty pathetic, huh? It's like everything I had been challenged with this weekend culminated in the conviction God put in my heart at that moment.

Here I had been thinking about letting my actions reflect my heart for Christ. But I didn't want to be legalistic about it and wanted to stay balanced. However, when I looked at my neighbor, I judged him so fast. I was guilty of Spiritual Profiling. I don't even really know him. God challenged me this afternoon to take the time to go deeper than just saying "hi" to the guy next door. God has put me on this earth to take a little time to be concerned about the spiritual well-being of my neighbors. I like to preach Matthew 22:37-39, but I also need to live it.

I finished the afternoon by washing my cars. I love to do that too. You ever notice how your car looks so much better when you wash it by hand rather than taking it to the car wash and spraying it off? There's no comparison.

A beautiful afternoon ended with taking an hour walk with Sal.

I missed being at HMB with my friends (the congregation) but I loved today.

I'll have to do this again. :)