The Mind of God

I woke up at 3:30 am again, so I decided to BLOG.

Most of the time if someone asks me a question about God and Why he would do something, I mull it over for a while, and have to come to the conclusion that I really don't know.... Like, can God make a rock so heavy that even he can't lift it? I don't know. When someone asks that question, I know that they don't really care what the answer is, they are just trying to screw with the mind of the person they are asking. There are three events in my life that I can say that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt how God felt about something.

Event 1.
A couple of years ago, the day before I was to start teaching, my wife and I lost a baby. We weren't far along, and didn't know if it was a boy or girl. We cried. boy, did we cry. I asked God why. I wondered if God could understand and feel what I was going through. Then When I was in church, my mind was wandering from the sermon (Sorry Gary), and then it hit me. God knows exactly how it felt to lose a child. He lost his on the cross. When Jesus died on that cross, God was separated from his child.

Event 2.
A few weeks after Em'ly and I lost our child, we get a phone call a little after 2:00 am on a Tuesday morning. (There are no good phone calls after midnight.) My brother called and told me that my Dad had passed away. I didn't cry. . . I wept, I wailed, I sobbed, but I didn't cry. My wife wept with me, we held each other tight for quite a while, then went to sleep. I actually taught later that day, because I wasn't leaving for Tulsa until Wednesday. A couple weeks later, I was in church, and again I had a difficult time focusing on the sermon (sorry again Gary). Then it hit me. God knows what it was like to lose a Dad. Because Jesus, who is part of the Trinity, had always been with God. Since the beginning, Jesus was with God. Then when He died on the cross, He was separated from God the Father. In essence losing the relationship with his Dad that he had had since the world began.

Event 3.
A couple days ago some friends of ours went to Russia to pick up the child they are adopting. while reading the story, I could tell how excited they are to be adopting this boy. Their excitement just oozes out of their pores. The story of the day they were in court is especially exciting. When the judge pronounced that the adoption was final, you could tell that people all over the U.S. were cheering for our friends. You could tell how much they loved this child. This child that wasn't theirs, but now is. I got to thinking. . . (Not in church this time). How much more does God love us than we can love our children. After all, we are just human. And how much more excited is God when one of his children come back to him, and wants to be called his.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I understand God about a two. While here on Earth, I think the best we can maybe get up to is 3 or 4, and I don't think too many people get that high, so I'm pretty happy with my two.

A great Idea for Old Wood

It's 3:30 AM and I'm doing what seems to happen a lot...laying awake in bed thinking...

What am I thinking about? An old door. When I was young, my brothers and I liked to build things out in the garage. Dad had the tools, and some wood or other material laying around, and we had our ideas. There is one thing that Dad set off limits... An old door that I believe is made of Walnut. Im pretty sure that Dad said something about the touching of this door being hazardous to the health of our hides. He got it from Grandpa, and I don't know where Grandpa got it from. When Dad died, I tried to find out if there was anything special about the door by talking to relatives, but no information was to be had. I don't remember how I ended up with the door, but it's mine. I have since been trying to think of some worthy project or thing to do with the door; I suspect that Dad had been trying to think of some worthy project to do also. It is a great old door. It is a hand planed four panel door. It seems to be old, and it is beautiful, dark, rich wood. Not just any project will do. (Yes, I've thought of using it for a door, but I don't have a house old enough or worthy enough to do that.)

For a while, I was thinking of making a bed out of it. It would be kind of a cool head board, in my opinion. That Idea had drawbacks. What do I make the side rails out of, and what do I make a footboard out of? I know that I could make just a head board, but that just doesn't seem right. So that idea was scrapped.

This morning, running through my mind was, "This door could become a Taylor Guitar." I think there are enough pieces that are the right size to make at least one, maybe two guitars. I don't remember why I ended up at Taylor's web site last night, but I did. I saw their Walnut guitars and was totally drooling. I don't even know why, I've never even heard a Walnut guitar. I'm in love with this company by the way. They seem to be the perfect mix of: Mom and Pop-/-Well run modern company. . . Computer Numeric Controlled Machinery-/-This just feels and sounds right. . . Efficient use of time and money-/-"Hold my beer and watch this." One time, they made a guitar out of an old wood pallet. How cool is that? I do own one of their guitars. How I got it is another story, but I love this guitar. Out of ALL of the guitars in the guitar shop I went to, this was my choice; A 30th Anniversary 414ce. It has Ovangkol back and sides, and great sound. One day, I'll own a custom Walnut guitar from taylor. . .

I'll supply the wood.

Cleaning out the ol' junk drawer

Sometimes, I feel like my brain's junk drawer is full.

It is hard to get more stuff in my head, because there isn't room for it. If I look in my House's junk drawer I find:

pack of seeds
2 kinds of tape
inner tube repair kit
super glue
Velcro stickers
Garden gloves
And about a million things I may or may not ever use.

When I look in my head, I find almost the same stuff:

Ideas that I've had that I haven’t brought to fruition
Ideas to keep relationships together
Weird stories
Love
Laughter
Sorrow
And about a million things I may or may not ever use.

Lucky for you, I'm going to use this space as a place to sort out the old junk drawer. Does this mean I'm adding things to the junk drawer, or taking them out. Let’s be real, how often do people really take things out of the junk drawer unless they are using them? Not very often. In fact, junk drawers usually get bigger...and/or they get other drawers added to them, so they take up two.

I remember going through my Grandma's junk drawer. I was fascinated by some of the stuff that had been in it longer than I'd been around. Old buttons, old combs, and old things that I had no idea what they were.

I think that sometimes we are embarrassed by what is in our junk drawers. I'm sure I'll be embarrassed by what is in my mind's junk drawer, but I'll try not to embarrass you.

Check back from time to time, I'll try to update this blog often enough to keep things interesting, but not so much that you feel that you can't keep up.

Peace,

DaveO