I thought I was really going to miss The Path Of Most Resistance. But I guess I don't. This message hit home with a lot of folks, and, coupled with some dynamic musical responses, proved to be an entree for people to enter into a living relationship with Jesus Christ. Bottom line:  We over-identify with celebrities because it's easier to follow their lives than it is to live our own.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STAND & READ Luke 20:45-47 at the beginning.   ⁴⁵ While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, ⁴⁶ “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. ⁴⁷ They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”   So there’s the sermon I could give – which would be relatively easy & even predictable – and then there’s the sermon I’m gonna give which is rather more difficult and somewhat surprising.  Because the easiest thing to do would be to take these words of Jesus, words that he consciously, purposely allows a large crowd to eavesdrop on – READ them again, just me – and substitute all the modern parallels.                Beware those with SILK SUITS & POCKET SQUARES & GUCCI LOAFERS, the ones who take lunch at the city club with rich congregants and who have a weekly show on INSP network.  Beware those guys selling salvation along with a deal on a condo.               Or . . . beware those with skinny jeans & soul patches & Skecher shoes, the ones who set up their offices in Starbucks & work on their sermons while slurping a latte & don’t need a TV show because they go direct to podcast . . . beware THOSE guys.  Because they might even be on multiple screens in multiple locations at the same time and you KNOW that means they’re not only going to hell, they’re taking you with them.               Or . . . maybe even watch out for the guys who still wear the robes, who love & honor & respect the denomination & in turn the denom loves & respects & honors THEM . . . beware those guys because you know they’re just really bureaucrats in THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH.  Lots of beware going on.               And that would have been an EASY sermon.  Or two.  Stand up and rail against celebrity pastors.  But you know one group I WOULDN’T rail against?  What I WOULDN’T say?  Oh, BEWARE the 55 year old who is usually in jeans, who is a bible lifter, loves the Eagles, and used to play tennis.  Nope.  That’s not part of the dealio, is it?  See, while the sermon I could have given would have been easy, I doubt very seriously it would have been helpful.  Or honest.  Because every preacher who spends time railing on celeb pastors . . . secretly wishes he was one.                No, what interests me in this little snippet from Jesus, this speech-ette where he lets us know that he personally is SO OVER CELEBRITY is the other side of the equation.  Because, yes, in Jesus’ day there were religious teachers (rabbis) (and what a great progression in the language, a divine escalation) who LIKE to strut around like a peacock             on display in their flowing robes and who LOVE to be greeted with respect & seated with honor.  They LIKE to be seen and they LOVE to be seated and greeted.  And what do I mean about the other side?               This:  That for every celebrity rabbi, there were 5, 10, 50, 25,000 (!) folks doing the seeing (admiring), doing the seating, and doing the greeting.  Everyone who has ever been a celebrity – then and now – arrives at that place because large #s of people treat them and revere them as just that.  So what is it in ppl – in Jesus’ day and now – that makes us so vulnerable to elevating the few, the proud, the celebrity preachers?               Because is this not an especially relevant question for us in 2017?  In a land where the Kardashians are famous for . . . what?  Oh yeah.  For being famous.  In a time when we say 2016, many of do so with a profound sense of sadness because there was a rash of what?  Celebrity deaths.  David Bowie, Prince, Glenn Frey, Zsa Zsa Gabor, George Michael.  On 12.31.16 you had all these people just blasting 2016 as if a particular rotation around the sun caused famous people to die.  People took those deaths personally; felt them acutely; identified with their now gone heroes closely.  Sheesh, when I – me, yeah, find my mood unhealthily affected by Roger Federer winning or losing . . . when I cried when tennis player Arthur Ashe died & still cry when see him on YouTube, it’s just helpful to ask: WHY?  Why are we celeb-obsessed & celeb-identified.  And you know this, don’t you?  Our President’s job before he ran for office.  As star of what?  Celebrity Apprentice.               Why do our lives get so wrapped up in the lives of people who are so “other”?  Whether in religion or sports or entertainment or politics or the obvious overlap between all of the above?  And yet when I peeled back Jesus’ words here – uttered, ironically, when his OWN CELEBRITY STOCK WAS RISING!  Yes!  He’d come into Jerusalem on the first day of the last week of his life riding on a donkey receiving the adulation of adoring throngs – I realized that he is actually less concerned with the celebrity rabbis than he is with the celebrity enablers.  Less about the false preachers and more about the ones empowering the falsehood with their ears.  And then it hit me.  It was true then, and it’s true now:  We Over-Identify With Celebrities Because It’s Easier To Follow Their Lives Than To Live Our Own.                GULP!  You’re like, “You mean Jesus says these words not so that I can judge the lives of others but so that I can examine my own?”  Yep.  Because look carefully at what we do, in the religious realm of life and beyond.  We get wrapped in Brangelina’s marital drama . . . . which makes it easier to ignore our own.  We’re all about the celebrity apprentice . . . which is easier than taking ownership of our own.  We watch Federer – or Cam or LeBron – be an athlete, which ends up taking the place of our own.  And even here, at this church or any church:  we watch a person on a platform have a living relationship with Jesus Christ – or some similar kind of spiritual experience – and we vicariously live it as our own.  We watch someone else doing the thing we’re supposed to do . . . and the better they are at it, the more we feel it. Until we hear about someone ELSE who does this spiritual thing even BETTER.                You know what?  I’m all FOR interesting and AGAINST boring when it comes to sermons; I’m FOR relevant and AGAINST pointless. But at some point it up to you. For you to live your faith even if the messages stink.  It’s like the guy who years ago – YEARS AGO NOW! – told me over the phone while explaining why he was leaving GS, “I’m just not growing.”  And of course, co-dependent me was devastated by that remark because it was quite obviously my responsibility to make sure he grew!  You know how it turns out, of course.  Turns out there have been about seven subsequent churches at which he Just. Wasn’t. Growing.  Who knew there were so many TERRIBLE PREACHERS in Greater Charlotte?!  We Over-Identify With Celebrities Because It’s Easier To Follow Their Lives Than To Live Our Own.                You know what 2016 showed us?  Celebrities die.  All of them.  And at the moment of death, that celebrity – Prince, David Bowie, whomever – is suddenly on equal ground with the beggar in India and the villager in Kenya.  You don’t take your Twitter followers or FB Likes to the other side.  You just don’t.  2016 actually did us a great favor.  It showed us in stark relief the absurdity of our preoccupation with the lives of celebrities.  It showed us how that preoccupation distracts us from the intricacies of our own lives.  Because you’ll be dead, too.  I just want you to LIVE until you get there.  We Over-Identify With Celebrities Because It’s Easier To Follow Their Lives Than To Live Our Own.                These words in 20:47 are so intriguing: READ.  The sense there is of people with an overwhelming desire to live a good chunk of their lives ON DISPLAY.  Preachers on display.  And one thing I’ve learned is the harder you see on of God’s workers trying to be on display . . . it’s to compensate for something somewhere else he wants to conceal.  People who long for the public eye rarely want to be subjected to a private eye.  And this is one of those places in which this bit of Jesus’ finished business applies to both celebrity rabbi and celebrity enabler.  So I have to ask you: do you have to try just a little hard to perfect the image of one area of your life as a way of hiding what is going on in the other area?  Is the perfect garage which you can control concealing the imperfect temper than you can’t?  Are your clothes perfect perfect perfect as a way of telling the world you’re all put together, when behind those closet doors is where you hide your Rx drugs?  Do you insist insist insist your kids are snap to it obedient in public because you’ve got something going on on the side that shows just how deeply disobedient you are to YOUR father?  People try to have hyper control in one area when another are is out of control.  Celebrity or not, all of us want to be about monitoring the lives we live for display.  And the life we hope to conceal.  There’s nothing better than we have nothing in either category.  We Over-Identify With Celebrities Because It’s Easier To Follow Their Lives Than To Live Our Own.                I guess all this really, really, REALLY matters because of the context here in Luke 20.  Remember CIE?  Context Is Everything?  Look up the page a bit at 20:41-44:   ⁴¹ Then Jesus said to them, “Why is it said that the Messiah is the son of David? ⁴² David himself declares in the Book of Psalms:

⁴⁴ David calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?”

  .  You know what he is doing there?  Jesus is asserting his authority.  Making this incredible claim that David, 100s of years earlier, was calling him, Jesus, LORD.  In a world where calling anyone other than Caesar “Lord” could get you killed, this is boldly radical stuff.                And it points out the ultimate danger of celebrity leaders, whether they wear silk suits, flowing robes, or skinny jeans.  They end up REPLACING the One they are supposed to REPRESENT.  Another name for that is idolatry, just using a human being instead of a chiseled statue.  And from the very beginning of time, people have turn to idols – wood, bronze, iron, and human – as a way of escaping their own responsibility for their own lives.               Don’t let that happen to you.               Don’t be seduced or consumed.               Your life may be hard, monotonous, challenging, but it’s the only one you’ve got.  Even better, as Colossian 3:4 says it, “Christ, who is your life, …”  The land between the commas says it all.  Who is your life.  The real God, not a fake one.  The one represented, not the one replaced.  So beware of the celebrity teachers . . . but more to the point, beware of what it is in you that makes you vulnerable to them.  We Over-Identify With Celebrities Because It’s Easier To Follow Their Lives Than To Live Our Own. 

Finished Business

While hanging on the cross and in the throes of death, Jesus called out: “It is finished.” But just what got “finished” in that moment?  What was completed in the last week of Jesus’ life on earth that could not have been accomplished any other way? Those are some of the questions we’ll address as we walk the way of Jesus on the road to Easter. And we believe that by the end of the series, you’ll be more than glad that our God completes – and perfects – everything he starts. March 19: So Over Celebrity March 26: Done With Pirate Playing April 2: Done With One Question Too Many April 9: It Is Finished April 16: A Funeral For Death Here's the video promo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRpofgJjWaw  

Some random, disconnected thoughts on the first Thursday of March Madness . . . .

• At Good Shepherd, we have to take care that we don't "brand the bullets & forget to brand the gun"; which means, as one expert told us, don't spend so much time promoting individual sermon series that the church itself gets overlooked.
• Last night, Roger Federer demolished Rafael Nadal 6-2, 6-3 in Indian Wells, California, and I don't know when I've enjoyed watching a match so much.  It was a work of art.  Destructive art, but art nonetheless.
• The more I listen to Jason Isbell's Southeastern, the better it sounds.  His songwriting helps me be become a better sermon writer.
• I am doing James MacDonald's Think Differently and Andy Stanley's Starting Point with two different LifeGroups.  I thank God for both of these men and their ministries.

• Right now, I have an large, bulky knee brace on my left leg because I have a slightly sprained MCL.  The contraption reminds of the time in my senior year of college when we played Duke in a dual tennis match.  My opponent that day was wearing one of these knee braces and was hardly what I'd call swift around the court.  And yet I still found a way to lose.  Not that I'm still haunted by that loss 32 years later or anything.
• Speaking of college & sports, Princeton is on a 19 game winning streak in basketball and plays Notre Dame later today in the first round of March Madness.  SMU is on a 16 game win streak and plays Southern Cal tomorrow night.  Which means that, together, I am on a 35 game winning streak.
• Instead of praying for growth, I'm praying for revival, complete with signs and wonders.
• United Methodists get a little bit uncomfortable and sometimes defensive when your language sounds something like that of an independent church evangelical.
• My primary daily battle is against self-absorption.  What's yours?

I spent the last couple of days in what's called The Triangle of North Carolina (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill), leading a cadre of students from the Duke Divinity School in a workshop called Sermons That Pop & Series That Stick. Wha-what?! The reason that is moderately interesting is that I am an alum of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.  And in the realm of theological education & ministry preparation, Asbury & Duke are sometimes viewed as ... frenemies.  Collegial, but guarded.  Respectful, but wary. Here's the deal:  historically, Asbury represents the strand of Methodism that blossomed on the American frontier in the early 1800s, full of revivalistic focus, calls to salvation, and preaching that includes, if not bible thumping, at least bible lifting (if you attend Good Shepherd, you know what I mean by that).  Duke, on the other hand, embodies the strain of Methodism that more closely resembles our Anglican roots, with reverent liturgy, scholarly preaching, and persistent invitations to holiness of heart and life. The paragraph I just wrote paints two schools with an extremely broad brush . . . but I think most within the denomination would agree with the contours I've described. So I was invited to by Brad Thie, former ministerial colleague in southwest Charlotte & current director of the Thriving Rural Communities Initiative at Duke, to share my experience and perspectives with 20 or so students under his care.  Brad believed that his students would gain by hearing from a "different" sort of UMC congregation AND he thought they would be interested in how it came to be that Abingdon Press has turned so many series into books. When I talked about how our sermon series at Good Shepherd have become more than a series of sermons (remember how the Home campaign raised $400,000 to fight human trafficking?), I was able to share the art that makes each series come alive. When I told the students that I typically prepare message eight weeks out, I encountered some pushback.  "What if something happens in the news that you need to preach on?"  "Well," I answered, "On extremely rare occasions we've done that, but in general I don't want to be held captive by the latest news cycle.  Nor do I want to talk about subjects about which I have amateurish knowledge at best.  I try not to be reactive."  I could tell that answer encouraged some students and frustrated others. I could sense a bit of "did he really say that?" when I talked about Good Shepherd's enthusiasm for baptism-by-immersion.  A tiny bit of "that's not the way I've heard it" when I suggested that that our recent, raucous Night Of Worship was actually more in tune with what it means to be "Methodist" than sponsoring a local chapter of United Methodist Women. Ultimately, I talked about where series ideas come from -- literally, from everywhere if you are looking around and taking notes -- and then I told them about some that are upcoming in the life of Good Shepherd:  Love Handles, Chiseled, Unhappy Campers, Hell Or High Water, Bouncebackers, and Where Apples Fall. And that's when things got most fun.  I gave the students a series of prompts -- a Baby Ruth bar, Close Up toothpaste, a belt, an umbrella, an ironing board, and a set of keys -- and asked them to look at the prompts for five minutes.  Then, get a pad of paper and a pen and devise a sermon series based on one or more of those prompts. The results really took me by surprise.  And I think they even impressed themselves with their creativity and moxie.  Some of my favorite series titles to burst forth from the group include "Don't Make Me Get My Belt!,"  "Do You Kiss Your Mother With That Mouth?,"  "Whisper Sweet Somethings,"  "Washed & Pressed," and, the most memorable, a series on the plagues in Exodus called "It's Raining Gnats & Frogs." I think that's the kind of response any teacher or seminar leader would want: students who take your good ideas and make them better. Whether those ideas come from Asbury or Duke.

Time change Sunday. Snow storm Sunday. But not so much snow we'd cancel church; just enough so that attendance would be dramatically impacted (halved). So what do you do? Give the people who show the best you got. And I like the message a lot as it takes Romans 8:18-23 IN CONTEXT and serves up this bottom line: God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   I want you to try something, OK?  1.  Lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles with it.  Got that?  2.  OK, while continuing to do that, take your right hand draw the #6 w/ it in the air.  Try it!  Impossible, right?!  Your foot always changes direction!  It can’t be frustrating when you can’t outsmart your own foot!               And so much of life is sort of frustrating, limiting, isn’t it?  You want better, long for better, but you’re not there.  Like every morning I have to take a Celebrex and do all this painful, groan-filled stretching (A-V).  Why?  Because I have a disc that has degenerated to the point of nothingness.  So I can’t run and can’t play tennis (remember, the older I get, the better I used to be).  There is this inevitable decay.  Of course, it’s true of more serious areas of my life as well:  I see my own continual failures to be holy, to be loving, to be godly.  I long for what I could be, what I should be and then see what is.  It’s tough.               You know what I’m saying.  You’ve got limitations and frustrations.  For some of you it may be this inability to stop smoking. You’ve tried, you’ve failed, and you no longer know what to do.  Or maybe you’re even like that good friend of mine who called me the other week and simply cannot stay sober from drugs.  He hates it, doesn’t want to do drugs, it’s not a matter of mere willpower, but he cannot currently stay off them for long periods of time.  Others of you may have frustrations and limitations around your health, your relationships, or even your ability to believe.  Yeah, you want this “thing” that happy Xns seem to have, that glow when they sing & worship, but you can’t quite embrace.  A longing for what could be; a frustration with what is.     I even experience that here; GS is good, great, but far from perfect.  I’ve got this longing for what could be & a frustration with what is.               These frustrations we have go along with the POMR because most of what we struggle with not only seems like a POMR but a Life of Most Resistance!  And just when I get to thinking that all these frustrations and limitations are the ultimate enemy, the great obstacle to be overcome, Scripture comes along with the most mind-blowing, jaw-dropping contrarian view on all this.  And the section of Scripture I’m talking about comes from Romans 8 & before we get to the mind-blowing, jaw-dropping part, let’s start at 8:18:    I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.     Oh!  What an anthem!  A clarion call!  We’re going to return to it, but what a great verse this is to ppl in the midst of a trial.  It is such a great verse that the GREAT TEMPTATION of it is to rip it out of its context, have it stand on its own & become a mantra.  And it’s a good mantra.  But if you do that, you have good mantra, but bad bible.  But if you do that, you miss the riches of Context Is Everything, not only as it pertains to Romans 8 but more importantly to the activity of God.               Because look at 8:19:   For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.   So all of creation – not only we humans but the comprehensive created order, from the microscopic to the telescopic – is waiting for something new.  On the edge of its seat, longing for better.  Then 8:20:   For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it,   Look at that carefully.  All of creation has this sense that life could and should be better – like, ya think gazelles LIKE being ripped to shreds by lions? – and v. 20 reminds us that life has a built-in frustration to it.  But look who the agent of this frustration is:  “the will of the one who subjected it.”  Well, who is the “one” with the power to limit, to restrain, to frustrate all of creation?  Satan?  NO!  He can harass but he sure as the devil (get it?) can’t CONTROL CREATION!  The only possible answer is THE CREATOR.  The one who made is the one who frustrates it.  Discontent is part of his plan.  That’s why you can’t get no satisfaction, Mick!               Wha-what?  Why?  Why would a good good Father have master planned frustration into the system?  Great question!  Because Romans 8 has a greater answer; look at 8:21-23:   in hope ²¹ that^[a] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.   See that?  It is to put us on the edge of our seat for this great unveiling at the end of time when the Lord returns (more on that in a bit) or the end of OUR time when we die.  When we go to the Lord or when he returns to us.  It’s the end of the world as we know it (clip?).  Every limitation, every frustration is part of God’s grand plan to make us long for the ultimate, the perfect, the eternal.  Frustration is not your enemy; it’s your friend because God uses it to grow your anticipation for the next life.  He doesn’t just ALLOW stuff; he DESIGNS it!  Here it is:  God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.  Yes!  God is so mean!  He is so mean that he overflows in kindness and mercy.  He limits you here so he can liberate you there.  He restrains you now so he can restore you then.  He wants you on the edge of your seat, longing for his return, and his perfection of all that’s messed up.  You can’t get no satisfaction & that’s how God made it.  God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.                 And a good chunk of you now think that either I have somehow lost it or that if God is really this way you’re not sure you want to follow him.  But do you know why this is such genius in Paul and so kind of our God?  Because if you could ever be completely content, without limitation or restraint or frustration in this life, you would not need God.  Enough ppl think they don’t anyway.  But every obstacle you face and every imperfection you inhabit is to grow in you that longing for the better day when your faith shall be your eyes.  Reading Romans 8 closely is incredible in the sense that God is active and intentional in ensuring our frustration so that we will yearn for his restoration.  Frustration is his design so that restoration will be your delight.  God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.               Now: please don’t hear what I’m not saying.  First, this is not a call to hurry the process and take your own life (or smoke 6 packs a day or drive recklessly so that you’ll die quicker).  It is instead an awareness that life with God on this side is good but life in God on the other side will be exponentially better.  I know we have ppl who wrestle with self-destructive thoughts and I want you to know in the most loving way possible that taking that ultimate step is not God’s design for you, ever, at all.  Second, don’t use this bottom line –God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.  – to become so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good.  Actually, I want you to become so heavenly minded that you are MORE earthly good.  You’ve got some good news and a new perspective to share with the world!  You've got a serenity regardless of who is IN government or who is PROTESTING government that says, "My citizenship is in heaven."   God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.               Because when you know this and internalize this as your foundation, 8:18 (remember him?) is so much better.  Because you realize that it’s all God’s design.  He doesn’t just tolerate our difficulties, he has designed this into the global system to make us yearn to be free of it.  So no present suffering – not cancer, not divorce, not unemployment, not Arnold Schwarzenegger on TV – is worth comparing to the glory that awaits & will be revealed.               Like . . . cancer is a YUGO (AV) compared to the Rolls Royce (AV) of eternity.  Divorce is Whitesnake (AV) compared to the Led Zep (AV) of eternity (the real thing!).  Addiction?  That’s just analog to the HD of Jesus’ glory!  Unemployment?  It a donkey compared to the thoroughbred of Jesus’ return!  All those … there is no comparison.  It’s a perspective that changes everything – not only how you endure today but, more importantly, how you anticipate tomorrow.  This seems trite, but as a new Xn I still got pimples (as a 55 year old, not new Xn, sometimes I still do).  And, for real, the only way I could cope was to realize: there’s coming a day when I and the rest of creation will be acne free!  (And with thick, full hair, too, but that’s another sermon for another time).  God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.               See, what a great perspective on the suffering we ace – both self-inflicted and imposed by others.  Why is it not worth comparing, even as soul-wrenching and life-draining as it is, with the future glory?  Because our afflictions are but clay in the hands of the master working God who uses it IF WE PAY ATTENTION to heighten our anticipation for the next life.  God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.               And have you noticed how BODILY all this is?  Think about it.  So many of the frustrations and limitations we’ve been talking about – from cancer in you to pimples on you – are centered on your body.  And, remember, ancient people like Paul didn’t think we so much have bodies but that we are bodies.  So not only are the frustrations Romans 8 talks about centered on your body but so is the restoration it promises.  8:23 removes all doubt: the redemption of our bodies.   And when I saw that in 8:23 all of a sudden 8:18 made more sense!  Because I’d always wondered why it said “the glory revealed IN us.”  Why not “to us”?  But when you connect to what goes on in your body, here’s where it leads:  that there is a glory, a perfection, a beauty waiting in heaven for us.  And when it is fully revealed at the end of time, it will not only be shown TO us but INTO us.  God’s glory will take up residence IN US!  Why?  Because we will have glorified, resurrected, perfected, FREE OF FRUSTRATION BODIES for eternity.  That’s why Scripture says your body is a Temple of the HS – we believe that by faith NOW and it will be done by sight THEN.  God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.               All this anticipation is really centered on what we call the Second Coming of Jesus.  That may be news to you (or old hat) but it is take-it-to-the-bank true: Jesus is coming back to usher in a new heavens, a new earth, a new YOU.  And it’s so funny – people tend to make heaven & eternity all about them.  Like listen to this newspaper note from daughter to deceased parents:     Mom I hope you can get Dad off the sports cloud every now and then and Dad, I am sure you have to pick up Mom from the game show cloud.  Surely you can spend some time together on the casino cloud.  Heaven – something for everyone!   As if eternity is about pleasing us.  Nope.  It’s not a man-centered splendor.  It’s a Jesus-centered glory.  Absolutely.  His return is the end game to which all of time points; it is the moment of liberation for which all of creation longs.  And how will we know when he is preparing to come back?  That his bags are packed & he’s ready to go?  Books have been written & movies made along those lines!               But here’s my vow: I will not spend a minute speculating on the WHEN of his return.  But I will spend a lifetime anticipating the WOW of it.               Because who knows?  When he comes back, I think I will even be able to make clockwise circles AND write the #6 at the same time!  And I can’t wait.  Can you?      God frustrates you in this life so you will anticipate the next one.