To Rapture or Not to Rapture?

 

So the weirdest things happened to me today. I got really challenged on something that I have come to just accept as truth.

 

The “Rapture”.

 

I’m reading a book all about Jesus. It speaks about who he was, who he is to today’s world and trying to expose the truth of who Jesus is.

 

Anywho, he goes on to start speaking about how we tell the story of Jesus is as important as what we believe about Jesus. So he started into the way that in some peoples lives Jesus is the Jesus from Revelation where he is the Jesus of judgement.

 

He then spoke about the Rapture.

 

Here is something I had no idea about. The first mention or idea of the Rapture actually came about in the 1800’s. It was never a teaching of the early church or christians and that the most people that believe in the Rapture actually believe that it is just something that everyone knows and it has always been.

 

Uhh yeah imagine me raising my hand right now cause that was me. I had no idea that it was such a new theology.

 

Now here is the thing. I can’t say my mind has been changed because he really didn’t speak against it, but it did get me thinking and made me really want to do some research and find out more about it.

 

So if you are reading this I would love some feedback…

 

To Rapture or Not to Rapture? That is the question.

 

Where do you stand and why…

 

Later

Not feeling Good today…

Blech… You know the days when you don’t really have anything wrong with you per-say, but you just feel miserable.

 

Yeah today is one of those days.

 

I feel like I just could stay laying down all day and not move or do anything cause my body feels just reading to give up. 

 

I hate this feeling, I love praying about it.

 

When God moves in your body and removes the sickness I love that. I think though sometimes that we feel like this because we’ve been going to hard or not taking care of ourselves as well as we should have been and this is the end result.

 

More than likely God has been saying “slow down” for a while and I just haven’t been listening and because of that I have a day, and hopefully only a day, of feeling not willing rasberry able to get up and do things.

 

If we would just pay attention to the quiet voice I know we would have been able to hear the slow down we have spoke to us. 

 

One thing that is always good about this is that this means a day with my family. I love those days. Common with kids like mine you can’t argue they are both so good. Just awesome.

 

So in the end maybe I’m not so upset I don’t feel good today…

 

Later

Saturday Night

 

Last night was my first time leading in what feels like months, even thought it’s only been a couple weeks. I love having the opportunity to worship with people that I love and I know love me.

 

The band last night was awesome, Craig was playing guitar filling in for Brandon, and Chris Holcomb was playing drums, so Heather stepped up front and sang with us.

 

It started off amazing with a really good practice.  I love when the most intimate times with God come while we are suppose to be “practicing”. It is always the time when God shows us what he wants for us in the evening and just allows us to worship him and with no one else there, there is always just an ease because you aren’t even leading worship, your just worshipping. When we have a practice like that I always assume that either the evening is going to be amazing, or it’s going to suck. No in between. But it was awesome.

 

There was so much time where we were just worshipping and letting God speak and we weren’t singing or really having anything happen but time alone with God. God spoke a few really awesome words through people. Brian Carswell, Ryan Borowko, Luke Tuitt, and myself. The one that really hit me was Ryan’s.

 

It was “simple” but so powerful, God was speaking so directly and strong. I’m so glad he shared it. We had just sang The Stand by Hillsong United and there is a line in the song that says ” And all I am is yours” Ryan came up and the thing that hit me the most out of what he said was God said to him “Ryan, all you are is mine”.

 

It’s no different if your tecticle other than he is made it about him taking us and not about us giving ourselves to him. I like that. When God says he is taking you because you’ve opened yourself up to him.

 

I love when God does something different. Quiet time with God is not normal at converge, it is usually all about the alter calls and the words and the worship and last night it was just about being quiet with him and letting him speak. Man I love when God changes things and yet he stays the same. Faithful and loving.

 

Anyways that is what happened for me last night, if your reading it and things were different for you I’d love to hear how they are different…

 

Later

Stealing from God…

 

Wow, that is not something that I would never want to be a part of and yet I realize now that for a massive part of my life I was stealing from him. In Malachi God speaks to his people about tithing. He calls them a wicked group and that he is ready to judge them because of their misguided ways. They have not been tithing. 

 

God actually says here in this spot… “Test me”. We are told not to test God in many places of his word but he says here that if his people were to tithe he would open up the windows of heaven and rain down upon them blessing. 

 

Hmm does that mean that we are suppose to be rich. Because he puts no other stipulation on it. He says only to bring in the tithe. That’s it, tithe and I will open up the windows of heaven. Now the argument can be made that he is not specifically saying that it’s finances he will bless us with, but it also would not exclude finances. So why am I not rolling in the money?

 

Cause what I see is not a blessing that has been poured out of the windows of heaven, maybe leaked from the crack in the floor but that is it. Now if we look at this in a way different from finances, then I see the blessing.

 

My marriage is doing better than I even thought it was possible. We now have two unbelievable kids. I would never change any of it for the world. The kids have both been such a huge blessing to Sarah and I that I can’t even begin to explain how important they have been to us.

 

Does God pour out his blessing upon us?

 

Absolutely. Does it mean that we will have tons of money, probably/ possibly not but I do know one thing about it, he will always take care of us and make sure that we are able to live.

 

I love that he pours out upon us and all we have to do is give him what is his. Now that is a God worth serving…

 

Later

 

 

It’s a good night…

It’s a good night when DUDS is trumped by the Holy Spirit. God obviously had the plan all along. While we were praying for youth in the afternoon yesterday it was really pressed on my heart that he needed to have his own way and we needed to let him do what he needs to do. 

We assumed that the worship would be about an hour long and that things would round up about 8:30 and we would go straight into the game. I’m very glad God changed things. It was at least 9:30 probably more closer to 10:00 when everything was finally finished in the worship and we were able to get out of there. It was a good night of hangout and praise together though I thought.There seemed to be a consistent message by God last night in that he was calling all of us back, pharisees and Gentiles. Over and over God seemed to be speaking about both is justice and compassion, and really his judgement. There were two groups last night, those that had been in the church for so long and grown up in it and knew what needed to be done and how they were asked to live/ how they wanted to live with God and just never had done anything about it. (Pharisees) The religious that did things only because it was religion not because Jesus was walking it with them. Then there were those that had never heard, whether they had actually heard or not. But last night God seemed to really speak to people’s hearts. There was even one guy who almost never comes to youth but he came last night and when all his friends were outside and didn’t really want anything to do with the service he came back into the worship and stayed for almost the entire time we were there. Something was happening in the hearts of the people last night. My hope and prayer is that those that had God knocking on their hearts and didn’t respond would not run away but would remain and allow God to continue to knock on their hearts. And all those that did answer, that they would not fall back into the loneliness that surrounded them but instead that they would push on into the joy of the LORD!When DUDS is cancelled for the Holy Spirit… It’s a Good Night!

 

Mystery

Give me a Mystery and watch as I search it out to find you…

Do you ever wish that there was a mystery there for you to solve. I do all the time. Like my favorite movies of all time were movies where nothing was adding up and you needed to try to figure out how exactly this whole thing worked together. One of the best of all time, if not the best was the “Usual Suspects”. Through the whole movie there was mystery but it was underlined. Sometimes the greatest mysteries are things that lie under the surface. When we realize this there starts to be endless mysteries for us to look into. Why does my wife do things the way she does? Why does she get upset when I do one thing but then doesn’t when I do something that usually would be far more rude. Why does that person that sits beside you always make fun of you or bully you. Or why do you always bully that person or make fun of them. So many things in this world are complete mysteries, they have no glaring answer or noticeable solution they just are the way they are.I’ve found that to solve mysteries we must rarely take anything at face value. The odd time things are exactly the way they look but often we need to look deeper, investigate. Pray, seek, find what the answer to the mysteries are.Are you ever scared of the mysteries?I am. Often we don’t want to know why we or others do things the way they/we do. It seems easier to think that the person that is a jerk to you is just a jerk and isn’t that way because they get bullied by their father, or have been neglected since childhood. Then how do we hold the sweet sweet feeling of offense. I don’t even want to look within myself to see those things. Why do I act that way?Is it past hurts that I need to let go of, is it something that I need to ask forgiveness for because it’s unfounded? That hurts and it scares me, I don’t like that idea… do you?No one wants to be introspective and find out that really it’s their fault, or even to have to pull up past hurts to realize where theses Mysteries come from. Maybe we should all be sleuths trying to find the answer to the mysteries around us… maybe that is what God asks us to do. The old cliche “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” becomes very real and maybe being that real is a little to much for us, that is why we have stopped searching the mystery of the soul and began the beautification of the face…I just love a good mystery…Give me a Mystery and watch as I search it out to find you…

 

Alone in a House with Three other People…

I don’t write that title to tell an experience of my own life but quite the opposite actually. The further I get along in my life the more I don’t understand how we operate as human beings. I have been so in love with my wife and kids over the past few months I can’t even explain how amazing it’s been. I feel like i must live in a bubble of some sorts because the closer I get to my family and the better things get here the darker they seem to get outside. 

I know that things have always been like this and there has always been a division that has been inside families because if families were really as close and relationships were what they were suppose to be God would have to be first in everyones lives, but come on. For the past well I don’t know how long I’ve heard people say something like this ” I don’t think I can have kids cause i don’t want to bring kids into this world because it’s to awful of a world.” I always thought that those people were just being idiotic thinking that because God is bigger than all those things. I still believe that God is bigger but man the further I get in life and the more I work with people the more I realize that this place is not a place I want my kids to grow up in. Now that I have two kids I see all of these things that I pray will never touch my kids. There is no bubble that is safe enough to place your kids that will keep them safe and secure. Public or private school doesn’t matter Christian school or secular school doesn’t matter. Church or street doesn’t seem to matter. There is always something lurking. The older I get the more I realize that I just have to lean completely on the Lord. There is no one/thing else that could possibly cover my children and keep them safe. Unfortunately parents don’t even keep there own kids safe, I mean 90% of the time it’s actually at home or the parents specifically that are causing there to be issues. How people can fool themselves into thinking that things are kosher in this world is beyond me.I can say this that my relationship with the Lord has brought me to a place where I realize that my strength isn’t enough that we as humans aren’t able to do it alone. That we must raise our hands to the Lord and allow him to pick us up and hold us keep us close and protected. I don’t ever want to know what it’s like to be alone in a house with three other people… Later,

 

Diary of A Tired Dad… Again

So last night was probably the most exhausting of all the days or nights so far. Elin was not wanting to eat for very long, well mostly she just kept falling asleep and since she was up probably three times in about two hours to eat, Ephram woke up also. He was dead tired but I think he heard her and figured he needed to be awake also. So we were up for a while with both kids awake and not really wanting to sleep either of them which wouldn’t have been to bad of an idea except neither of them was in much of a good mood. 

In moments like that I really don’t do to well. I’m never upset of mean or anything like that but I’m only half awake and since it only takes me one second to fall asleep when I’m not tired half asleep it takes about a quarter of a second and I’m out again. So I was in and out of sleep the whole time but trying to look after Ephram so he wasn’t trying to climb on Sarah while she was feeding Elin. Anyways when I look back at the night it really wasn’t that big of deal it was only about half an hour but it seemed like a far bigger deal while it was happening. As I’m writing this my wife can’t help but laugh at me because I’m talking about how this has all made me so tired because I’ve probably doubled her amount of sleep since Elin showed up. I’m the only one that has napped in the afternoon and I’m dosing in and out of sleep the whole time she is up feeding. So with that being said this will be my last Tired Dad Post the rest will be from an awake Dad…Later

 

The Diary of A Tired Dad

So if you are reading this and you haven’t heard yet then your probably a creeper reading my blog and I don’t know you but either way here are a couple funny stories for you so far of my experience with Two Kids. 

December 3rd – 2007The day was amazing our second child was born and although both Sarah and I were sure that this was going to be another boy we were wrong, it was a girl and we were so happy. We were wanting a girl so bad to have the family you know an Boy first with a little sister. So Elin (Ee-lin) Norah Rasmussen Steele was born at 12:03 pm and we were elated. After a night with very little sleep I was already very tired and not ready for another night of the same with Elin here. Much to my satisfaction she is a great sleeper and eater and she slept very well through the night. I on the other hand didn’t do so well, I couldn’t find a good place to sleep. I wasn’t able to sleep in our room because the one chair that was there was awfully uncomfortable. So I went for a walk and looked for a spot to actually sleep. I found a waiting room with a big thick black leather recliner. It wasn’t in the mother baby unit waiting room it was somewhere on that floor and it was amazing. Before I left I told Sarah I would just sleep for two hours then come back. As I sit down on the chair I set my alarm for two hours from then sat down and went to sleep. Everything seemed fine until I heard Sarah’s voice saying Rob can I get your help. You may say what is the problem with your wife asking you for help, well the problem was that I was back in the room. Sarah had to go to the bathroom while I was gone and a nurse came in and took Elin to the nursery to have a couple tests done. When Sarah came out of the bathroom I was sitting back in the chair I had left and the nurse was also there with Elin in her hands. So I don’t know if I talked to the Nurse or if I came in and went back to sleep or what happened but the truth is that my alarm didn’t ever go on my phone and when I woke up I was back in the room. I was just waiting for someone to come and tell me I had to leave the Hospital because I went into some room that is not open for anyone to go into. Sleepwalking through The General Hospital what a dork I am. December 4th – 2007So after this I had a good day with a few little cat naps through the day with Elin and I’m all good. We get all the way through the day without any big event happening again. We came home at about 4:30 in the afternoon from the hospital and things are going really really good. She’s happy which means that everyone else is happy. That night Elin is doing amazing, I mean she’s sleeping really well all day and she fed again at probably 11:30pm. Sarah and Elin lay down to get to sleep. I go back downstairs to see if I can catch up and anything that has happened in the world of Sports for the past two days. I actually don’t even remember having my head hit the pillow I was so tired but in the end Sarah came downstairs to get me to come up and change Elin while she was in the bathroom and then she would feed her once she got back. Well I was really not awake. I went out to the livingroom put Elin down on the couch getting ready to change her. I realized at this moment that I had to go to the bathroom so i proceeded to go to the bathroom. Sarah opens the door and asks where is Elin. Oh she’s out on the couch, and to ease her fear I say at that moment don’t worry she’s out there with Craig. Sarah look at me and says Rob what are you talking about. I again looked at her and said “Elin is out on the couch but don’t worry cause Craig is out there” she then says again “Rob stop and think for a second you’re telling me that Craig Moleski is sitting on out couch right now with Elin.” Then out of frustration for her not believing me I look at her and in a snotty voice I say “SARAH Elin in on the couch with Craig right NOW!” Sarah walks away I proceed to go to the bathroom and when I come out I have already forgotten about the whole altercation because, well I was asleep the whole time and didn’t know that I had that conversation with sarah at all until the next day when we talked Sarah let me know how hard it is to wake me up. Needless to say I don’t wake up very easily when I am already asleep and that having less sleep every night that I am use to doesn’t help this situation at all. These things are only two of many stories to come in the Diary of a Tired Dad…Later…

LIMBO

Well we are now 6 days away from the baby the due date and everything is in a state of limbo right now. It feels like we can’t do anything right now. We are in the middle of waiting for what is the inevitable but so exciting. We both want this to happen so bad well honestly Sarah wants it so bad and I want it. 

She is ready to be done with having something inside of her causing her to be tired and sore and well just uncomfortable. I’m ready just because I hate limbo. So as we are waiting we are feeling like nothing can happen really. W are praying everything goes well and easy.I don’t have anything more to say because just like in our life I’m in this weird state of unrest and uncertainty. Anywho, I’m out of here hoping to hear these words soon. “Uhh Rob and I think it’s time” but not holding my breathe.Later…