Delaware Dad

A man with leprosy came to him and begged on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. Be clean!”
-Mark 1:40-41

In March 2020, I was volunteering with homeless families who were using our church as temporary residence for the week. This was a regular act of service for me and my sons.

Talk around the dinner table turned toward the coronavirus that appeared to have escaped from China. “Social distancing” was a new phrase to me and I joked that Jesus would hate for us to embrace the sick and needy. It didn’t go over well. I knew then that something insane was happening and that I might not be able to count on Christians to stand strong.

I stayed with the overnight shift and helped with the simple breakfast setup. One of the families had a member who had been having respiratory discomfort most of the night. They wanted to go to the hospital and I directed them to the bus stop across the street. I looked outside and it was still dark and rain was pouring down, “There’s an urgent care just up the road, can I drive you there?” I had just enough room in my minivan for my sons and the family and I couldn’t send them into the dark rain. The urgent care wasn’t yet open, so I drove them to the hospital.

I got word later that day that the afflicted individual had been diagnosed with a streptococcus infection, not dissimilar from Mary’s. It didn’t change my calculation in any way. I could not send that family into the rain while ill. I could not send them on an unfamiliar route to an unfamiliar hospital. I would do the same a hundred times over if given the opportunities.

It doesn’t seem heroic, foolish, or particularly Christian. It feels like the common courtesy and helping hand I have often tried to extend to others. The repeated examples of Jesus holding the sick and “unclean” moved my heart to take up a similar path for myself.

I am grateful for these oppotunities to care for my fellow man and not shun them for my own perceived safety.

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The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
-Genesis 3:8

This blog and my online presence has largely been an effort to not hide. I know I can’t hide from God, but staying accountable to as many people as possible helps me stay out of trouble. Sort of.

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The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
-Genesis 2:15

God created us to create. I do that in this space. I do it with my sons in all types of ways. I create connections and strengthen bonds between people I know so they can create.

All of our actions create change in the world.

What are you creating?

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Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed, “Everyone is looking for you!”
-Mark 1:35-37

Jesus had a habit of going off on his own to reconnect with the Father. This is the first weekend I haven’t had my sons with me in over two months. I’m not alone, but this weekend is about connection. Yesterday I connected with myself in difficult jiu-jitsu competition. I paused in the middle of the day to take time with God’s Word and check in. It’s very easy to fall into the excitement and anxiety of a moment and forget why you are there. This habit of returning to the Word each day is grounding me.

I’m going to carry this connection with me into my first psychedelic experience. I don’t know what I will find there, but I know my heart and mind are with God and He is with me. I feel safe in this place.

As today’s devotional is titled, I’m about to Get Away. I pray in Jesus’s name for continued safety, love, and enlightenment.

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Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
-1 Peter 1:8

I am blessed with a love of the unseen. My earliest memories are of being in a dark cabinet, imagining mythological avatars in space battles. My father was a rebel among Jehovah’s Witnesses and fed my imagination with Norse, Eastern, and Catholic imagery along side black-and-white monster movies and classic Star Trek.

The unseen was no less real to me than the narrow spectrum of visible light. I felt the Holy Spirit out in the woods…and still do.

I thought faith in Jesus Christ was impossible for me, maybe because He appeared to me as a man who existed in the physical realm. Now I see the invisible garments that the Holy Spirit had been weaving for me. My faith feels inevitable and more comfortable than any belief I wore before.

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These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 1:7

There is growth in God’s Love or death in rejection of it.

Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying focus on how the human brain has developed to need the expansion of territory and that this fundamental motivation can be simulated through intellectual, physical, and spiritual endeavors.

I grow in Love by keeping my eye on its most perfect form. When I’m living in its light, I love myself better and can share that love with others. The well is infinite and the possibilities of what can be achieved through God’s Love are endless.

I try to grow physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually every day. I’m not always successful and I understand that rest is a necessary component of growth, even if I occasionally crash into it.

This weekend I will have at least two firsts in my physical and spiritual journeys. My first jiu-jitsu competition and my first psychedelic experience. I don’t know how far my horizons will extend, but I know that God has prepared more room for my spirit to expand than I could ever imagine.

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“Go. I am sending you to Pharoah to bring my people the Isrealites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Isrealites out of Egypt?”
-Exodus 3:10-11

Unworthiness. It plagues each of us. Especially when God calls us.

God has called me to do difficult things since I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart.

This weekend I will compete in my first jiu-jitsu competition. An odd sort of mission, but one in line with building strength for the next challenge.

I feel unprepared and intimidated by younger competitors. I will release those fears and trust that I will have a day of intense learning.

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Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains.
-Colossians 4:3

God gave me a voice and an ear for widows and widowers. He gave my sons the same for orphans.

After Mary’s memorial, someone said of my eulogy, “Someone walked out of that church with a new love of Christ in their heart.” To have the Holy Spirit work through me in that way was uplifting. It gave me call to share my faith in its ignorant infancy.

I still don’t know much about my faith. My way is to ask questions and be open to answers that I don’t want to hear. It’s the best way to listen to the widowed, be not just prepared, but enthusiastic about hearing something awful and scary.

Evangelism isn’t a sales job for Heaven. It is an opening of the mind to the vast space between Heaven and Hell.

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.