Sights and Sounds

This morning I found myself getting my bass out and getting myself reacquainted with it. Speaking to a couple members of my churches worship team they had suggested to just show up to practice and see where it goes and maybe I can over time work into a fill in or alternating positions. Playing around with a few things I remembered from when I was playing regularly and goofing off with some new stuff and getting back into how it feels to play again.

During my time playing, I also spent time listening to old and new music in my library and remembering how I felt at times when those songs touched me. This remained me about how God uses all kinds of things to whisper to us. I spent a few hours just listening to music playing along when I could or trying to figure out what the bassist was doing. Each of those songs I remember touching me in a different time and in different ways. I remember the day I listened to the song “I Refuse” by Josh Wilson and hearing God push those words onto my heart. This song (if you have not listened to it) is about refusing to sit back not doing the things God calls us to do.

Christians many times focus on all the “thou shall not” statements, but Christ has told us to “Love.” The word for love in today’s world is all about the feelings and the ewy gooey mushy stuff, but the Love that Jesus uses is a verb, an action word. Christ calls us to “Love our neighbor” or to “Love our enemies” when we look at love from the feeling side of the word we think that is imposable how can I have feeling other then anger toward my enemies or how can I love the owners of the little yappy dog next door. When you look at love at an action then you can see what Christ was calling us to do.

Love is putting others needs before your own. Looking at it this way we can see how we can love our enemy or our neighbor. We are to fulfill a need when we see it and have the ability to fulfill it. We are to not only to take care of ourselves as the world does but take care of those around us. In Matthew 25:40 “… Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these brothers, you did it to me.” This is Christ saying that as we take care of the needs of those around us we are taking care of him and following his commands to Love.

After playing my bass for a time I realized that before I go one my Mission to Mexico in a few weeks I should also clean off the pictures that were still on the memory card. Going through them I found it had been nearly six months of pictures that I had accumulated and needed to sort. As I go through then I find things that I was in awe of when I took the picture but also coming back to them. At one point we had a cold snap and my wife and I went around taking pictures of fountains and bodies of water some great pictures of what can happen in the cold. I also found pictures of our Golden Retriever playing in the snow and on the beach.

Looking through these pictures and seeing the beauty that God has put together for me to see just how wonderful he is through his creation.