Both of my boys are getting to an age where they are excited to not just be a spectator, but a participant.  So one Sunday they watched one of their friends (who was 7 years old at the time) passing our Communion trays.  Every Sunday we take communion where we celebrate the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  They pressed us, mostly their mom, to be able to serve communion.  She told them that when they were 7 they could pass the trays with daddy.  I was just as excited as they were.  This was one of the things I did growing up and hadn't served a tray since I was in college.  So a few Sundays back they turned 7 and on that day we helped serve the communion to our church.   They did an awesome job and ever since they desire to serve communion every Sunday.  Right now we are serving it together, but as they get older and keep learning they will be able to do it on their own.

I love that they have found something that makes them feel like a participant in worship.  I love that they want to serve.  I love their enthusiasm.  I love how this one act in our worship service has made them more invested in the entire service.  I love watching them grow into godly men.  God's grace is evident in my parenting.  He is truly using Leah and me to raise our kids to love God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, and ALL people.

My friend Troy is a master at Rubik's Cubes.  It doesn't matter its shape or how confusing it may look, in a matter of minutes he can solve the puzzle.  I'm really amazed at this.  I used a Rubik's Cube for a sermon one Sunday and it stays on my desk.  From time to time those who are in my office, usually my own children, will take the cube and rearrange it, making it all disorganized and a mess.  And from time to time Troy will come into my office and see the cube and "fix" it or rather, solve it for me.  I'm thankful that Troy can do that, because I cannot.

I was thinking recently how some came to Jesus with a mixed up cube and Jesus took that disorientation and desperation and within in moments helped line everything up with all the colors in the right spot.  They came with disease, sexual immorality, illness, hunger, demons, and complete disbelief.  When they walked away they had met the ultimate Savior and their lives had been taken from distraction, disillusion, and disaster to grace, mercy, and love.  The goal of Jesus wasn't to take away pain and destruction from the world.  The goal of Jesus was to bring light into the darkness of those things so that God could be glorified.

However, there were others that came to Jesus with a perfectly solved cube.  They approached Jesus with a "perfect" life.  They had their theology, lifestyle, or wealth figured out and expected a commendation from Jesus.  And as they begin to show off their perfectly solved cube, Jesus takes it in his hand mixes it all up and hands it back.  The goal of Jesus wasn't to commend the perfect.  The goal of Jesus was to turn hearts to the perfect God.

Sometimes I bring Jesus my cube and he solves it, other times I'm humbled at what he returns to me.  The one thing I do know is that every time I am changed.

One of the greatest things about being a Christian is the world-wide community that you belong to as each of you are connected through the Holy Spirit.  We are all one together under the one Savior, Jesus Christ!  One of my least favorite things about being a Christian is how I am lumped together with ALL other Christians even when I don't support their view of how to live like Jesus or their interpretation of scripture.

We are lumped together!  It is like the marriage vows we are together with Jesus, all of his as the church are His bride, and so better or worse, sick or healthy, rich or poor; we are together.  So since Christians are all over the continuum I am lumped with Pat Robertson, Phil Robertson, Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Rachel Held Evans, Rick Warren, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Joyce Myer, Andy Stanley, Beth Moore, Dave Ramsey, Barbara Brown Taylor, Laura Winner, Scot McKnight, Phyllis Tickle, and Shane Claibourne.  All are Christians and yet they are all over the spectrum.  Lumped together because they believe in Jesus, his death, burial, and resurrection.  And yet being lumped together with all of these different personalities, political interests, and theological perspectives, can make you feel attacked as a Christian every day, all the time.

One way to respond to being lumped together is to make your convictions know loud enough so that you set yourself apart from the lump.  However, another way to respond may be to keep sharing the perspective that is the most important.  We are lumped together because we have been saved by Christ as one and we ALL confess His name and we ALL walk his path as we ALL carry our cross.

Sometimes the lumping hurts and frustrates me.  But even on our worst day, we are still married to the perfect Son of God.  And I'll take the hurt and frustration that comes and choose to celebrate the freedom and life we have been given.