cleaning.

I feel like I have been cleaning a lot lately. Most of my day today has been consumed with cleaning, actually. This is not necessarily a bad thing either. I enjoy it to a certain extent, and its a good time to think and let your mind wander.
So my mind has had a lot of time to wander off lately, and just recently I stumbled on something I haven't really thought of before. I noticed how much time we spend cleaning things, just so they can get dirty again. Think about it, it can take 45 minutes just to vacuum the house, just so the carpet can get dirty again. The other day I had to clean my dads fridge. I didn't really mind this, because I loved seeing the end product of a clean fridge shining back at me. But while I was cleaning it, I couldn't help but think of how much effort I was exerting into rubbing off the spilled soy sauce, knowing that some other type of condiment was bound to spill on the shelf again in the days to come.
While thinking about cleaning houses and the like, my mind shifted to a skit that I saw at the Planet Wisdom conference two years ago about Jesus making his home in our hearts. The actor that was playing Jesus was pretending to open rooms in a certain persons home (or heart), and examining what should stay, and what should go in each room.
I thought that this skit was so interesting because too often I forget about that fact that the holy spirit is actually living inside of me. And in the same way that I would take the time to clean a physical house, I need to take the time to clean out my heart, and sort out the things that should stay, and the things that should go.
So while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing an unknown liquid off the shelf of the fridge and getting rather sick of this whole cleaning thing, I wondered how Jesus never fails to cleanse our hearts, even with the knowledge that we will cloud it up again with another sin that can so easily be entangled.

My eyes are slowly being opened to the beauty of grace.

the lakehouse.

Let me introduce you to The Lake House. Some of you may not be so familiar with this term, but for those who live in the Western Suburbs, you should know quite well what I'm talking about. You know, the house you go to with a lake front view that you escape to in order to "get away from it all".
I've been thinking about this whole idea of having a lake house a lot lately, because in the summer many Hinsdaleans seem to vanish into thin air once it starts to get warm. Where did they go you may ask?

The Lake House.

More importantly, I've been thinking about what effect lake houses have on true community. I didn't have to search long before I found my answer staring at me square in the face. As harsh as it may sound, I truly believe that lake houses have the potential to destroy the true, and raw community that many of us long to be apart of. Think about it, how can we get to know one another at a deeper level when we are gone for weeks at a time, or even for just a weekend jaunt. And when I really started to dissect what it means to own two houses, I came across a startling realization. I realized that while our neighbors, whom we are supposed to love as our selves, are living on the sidewalk not even 45 minutes away, we are comfortably sitting on our plush couches in Hinsdale, Illinois trying to decide what house we want to be at for the next week.
But while I am sitting here on my plush couch ranting on how negative lake houses seem to be, I can't help but think about how many loving Christ-followers have lake houses, and use it for God's glory. I know so many Christians that have lake houses, and still have a heart to serve others, and would be willing to give the house away if God wanted them to. I understand that many of us are fortunate enough to have a house that we can spend time in during the year, or even lend to families so that they can have a nice vacation. Lake houses aren't necessarily a bad thing to have, and if God gave family a lake house to enjoy, they shouldn't feel guilty about it.
Now, in no means am I inviting all of those who have lake houses to give it to a poor person, or sell it out of guilt. But what I am inviting you all to do is to access how much we actually have, and compare it to how much we actually need. I think we will all find that we have a lot more "stuff" then we need.
Do we need lake houses? I don't know, thats not my place to decide for you. But I guess the real question may boil down to this: Are we investing more time into our relationships, or our "things"?

Purpose for getting a Blog.

Hello All.
So this is my very first blog post, and it may take a few posts for me to get used to the whole thing. But I would like to share with you why I decided to get a blog. I've been marinating on the idea for some time now, and I obviously made the decision to make one.
I feel like having a blog will encourage me to write a lot more but more importantly, I think it has the potential to strengthen true community; something that can be easily lost in a town like Hinsdale. So I am inviting you, my eager blog reader, to join me in exploring life as I know it.