I've Got A River Of Life...

Have you ever had moments where you were refreshed? Like the kind of refreshed after a good nights sleep, where you get to sleep until you just wake up. I'm having one of those days today. Well, technically, it started yesterday.

I was on my way home and I had just unpacked my ipod from it's hiding place inside my workout bag. Yeah, it had been awhile since I'd seen it. Anywho, I was flipping through the artists and came across a band I hadn't listened to in forty years. Smalltown Poets. I used to love those guys. Clickwheeled it to "Prophet, Priest and King." I would like to share a bit of this song...

"If I indeed am misperceived by some heads of state.
Hey, that's great
'Cause I talk to a prophet who tells me the truth
And I dine with a king at my home in Duluth
Better yet I'm in touch with a much needed friend
Who hears my confessions and pardons my sin

But my closet's a shrine to an old friend of mine
Here I talk all the time with a prophet, priest...
I pull out boxes and brooms and I gush like a groom
For it's here I commune with a prophet, priest and king"

For awhile I had forgotten about the gift of prayer. Not that I never prayed, but most of the time it was in passing or in traffic (Dear God, smite this bad driver and the piece of crap he is driving. Amen.). You know the kind, when you just kind of think of stuff and you say, "Yeah God, do that okay?" I used to think that this was okay, that as long as I 'thought' about God at some point during the day I was okay, or I had filled my quota for the day. But the more I thought about it, I thought of Jesus. Here is the Son of God, the most connected human ever to God, and even he had to go away and be by himself for hours and hours at a time to be right with his Father.

Wow.

But then I realized it made sense. Jesus isn't so concerned about the end product, or the result of our prayer like we are. We say, "Oh be with them cause they have cancer, amen." Now, whether he decides to heal them or not isn't really the point. He wants to struggle with us. Cry with us. Rejoice with us. And the only way for that to happen is for us to choose to spend time with him.

It's uncomfortable at first because he usually airs the dirty laundry first. Yeah, that sucks. But isn't always the best when you slide into bed on those nice clean sheets that are still warm from the dryer? Well, the only way to get there is the laundry room.

So today, feeling all refreshed I went on the internet in search of new adventures. Came across this site of a church that seems to be living my dream. First of all, I think they have the best name for a church website that I could ever dream of: http://www.churchinabrewery.com Check them out, especially the two blogs about rethinking church and rethinking life. Good stuff. God is good!