As Frederick Buechner wrote, “Laughing is better than crying and maybe not even all that different…(because) no matter what the immediate occasion is of either your laughter or your tears, the object of both ends up being yourself and your own life.”

Several months ago while driving on Loop 289 with my girls, Annie said out of the blue, “Daddy, we need to get you a girlfriend. We’re going to be graduating soon and we don’t want you dying alone.”

She packed three traumatic events into one sentence. I was proud of her for her efficient word usage and communicating with maximum punch. And frightened that my 10-year old sees her graduation and my passing as imminent events.

“Yeah, Daddy”, says Emma, “Why don’t you get on one of those “Date.com” things?” Apparently they’ve seen the commercials. Apparently, so have a lot of people.

It’s estimated that in 2011 the U.S. online dating industry will hit $1 billion in revenues. That’s a lot of people hoping to find the happiness they see in the commercials for sites like E-Harmony and Match. In the UK, 1 in 5 marriages of those age 30 and under are relationships that began online. And to think my parents and grandparents managed to meet and marry, all without the aid of computers. “Instant Messaging” for my Grandfather meant tossing a pebble at Grandma’s window to get her attention.

I was on E-Harmony for awhile. The sign up process made me nervous. I was very leery of this online stuff. Maybe I’m more like my Grandfather than I thought. We gave him a new radio once for Christmas. He set it up on the refrigerator in a prominent spot, while continuing to play the old radio he had stashed behind it. Technology is not to be trusted.

Not being sure if I’d like it or not, I decided not to use my first name, thinking I could change it later. You can’t. So now I’m “Rambo”. Not really. I used my middle name, “Stud Warrior”.

I took the multidimensional personality profile that E-Harmony boasts. Supposedly it will cut through the superfluous data and match me with highly compatible females who share my interests and values. I’m sure the profiles I saw represent nice people. But for the longest time it seemed the only matches E-Harmony sent me were 55-year old retired librarians who live in Missouri in a big house with 12 cats. I’ve got nothing against librarians or Missourians. But I live in Texas and I like dogs. They must have adjusted the algorithm slightly because I started getting matched with 48-year old women from Arkansas whose goal in life was to work for the ASPCA and rescue all the cats the librarians had yet to get to.

In the online environment, as in face to face environments, everyone wants to put their best self on display. Except the anonymity of the cyber world allows the opportunity to exaggerate one’s information and appearance. A recent study done in Europe found that over 55% of those involved in online dating had experienced some form of deception. Italians seemed to have the most trouble being honest with each other, saying over 70% of them had lied or exaggerated their profile. Mamma Mia! That’s putting a lot of extra cheese on the calzone.

If I’m meeting a girl in person for a first date I can’t say that I look like a young Sean Connery because before she can say “007″, she’ll be able to discern that Sean never had a forehead that high or a hairline in rapid retreat. Yet online one can post any photograph of themselves. A guy once told me that he had a chance to finally meet the lady he’d been corresponding with online. “In her picture, she looked young. When we met in person I realized the picture was probably her drivers license photo and she was on the last year of a ten year license.”

Getting to know someone in an online environment is challenging for anyone. It’s not easy being single. Harder being a single parent. And even more challenging when you’re divorced. Add to that, I’m an older single person. All these together are daunting for anyone.

But nothing is ever easy for me. I’m “divorced, older, single parent guy with a plastic eye.”

In the interest of full disclosure, how do you gently work that into an online instant message chat?

And if the relationship has potential, how do you sell that as an upside? “If you marry me, you can make faces when I’m driving and I’ll never know.” Or, “I promise to only see half of any mistakes you might make.” Or maybe, “Hey, just think! Our contact lens budget will be reduced by 25%!”

After going through the process you start to think the chances of meeting someone compatible are about the same as marrying the person who pulls up next to you at a red light. Which, now that I think about it, might not be a bad idea. People have gotten engaged, married and had their first kid in the time it takes traffic lights in Lubbock to turn green.

Single or married, divorced or widowed, God loves us. Quirks and all. How wonderful that He does. He’s right there in the middle of it all whether we’re happy or sad, connected or disconnected, joyous or grieving, loved on or lonely.  He’s always here, caring constantly about the details of our lives. However frayed our edges are, He promises in the end to tie up all the loose ends. Psalm 138:8 promises that “The Lord will accomplish all that concerns me.” One translation reads, “The Lord will perfect all that concerns me.” Which is to say however incomplete we feel, God will never leave His purpose for us undone.

Next time you see the commercials, remember not everything is as it appears to be. “Rick and Becky – matched on E-Harmony, July 2010.” Him spinning her happily around in a field of wildflowers while she laughs at the sky.

The commercial I think we’d all like to see is what happens when she meets his mother and he forgets Valentine’s Day.

That’s what you call “reality television”.

“The Lord will accomplish all that concerns me.” – Psalm 138:8

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLIfeToGo.com

Annie and Emma are in the back seat at Sonic Drive-In, enjoying an after school snack while we sit with engine running. It’s unseasonably cold this week. So cold that there is no one dining at the outdoor tables, the same tables that smart sparrows know to be a smorgasbord of crumbs for them.

The sparrows are here this day, too, feathers fluffed against the wind and single digit temperatures. Looking for food in all the usual places, one sparrow flits under a red metal bench. Leaning down he picks up what must look to him like a tiny piece of a cast off tater tot or onion ring. He pecks it, picks it up and clamps down with his beak. But it’s not food. It’s a pebble that looks like food.

He drops it, looks at it, then picks it up again. Again he clamps down. Maybe it really is food but today it’s frozen food? Nope. Still a pebble. He drops it, hops away for about three seconds, looks back and returns to pick it up again. This time pecking really hard and trying to crush it in his beak.

Still a pebble.

Silly bird, I think. You can want it to be food. But it’s always going to be a pebble. It should be easy enough, I reason, for even a bird to tell the difference between food and a rock. But then I think maybe that sparrow isn’t the only one having trouble figuring that out. We humans do our own pecking at pebbles.

Are you trying to make something be what it can never be?

Maybe you’re pecking at your job. You’re telling yourself that if you just work a little harder and adjust your attitude and suck it up and buy into what management is saying that you’ll come around and really like what you do…even though your heart is screaming because you know you’re hard-wired for something completely different.

Peck.

Maybe you’re pecking at your dating relationship. He is a nice guy and it’s 90% pretty good and you’re telling yourself those nagging doubts you have that you never talk about aren’t really red flags at all. They’re just jitters and everyone has them and once you walk down the aisle all your fears will disappear and you’ll live happily ever after…even though the part of your soul that always tells the truth is telling you not to proceed because that missing 10% is the difference between forever joy and permanent misery.

Peck, peck.

Maybe you’re pecking at the relationship you have with a friend or family member struggling with an addiction. Yes, they drink more than you’d like them to but they function at a high level in spite of it and they aren’t like the other drunks you know. And if you just keep being the understanding friend then they’ll eventually see the light and change their behavior…even though your gut knows that their happy veneer is wearing thinner with every binge and their self-destruction is only an open bar away.

Peck, peck, peck.

Maybe you’re pecking at your relationship with God. You go to church every week except for the two times a year you’re sick and that Disney vacation to Orlando. Your Christianity is comfortable, like the fleece pullover you’ve had for years. It fits and it never rubs you the wrong way. In fact, it’s so comfortable you never think about it except lately you’ve been thinking about it and you don’t like thinking about it.

So you’re telling yourself that you’re far more dedicated than most people so why should you have these nagging thoughts that maybe, just maybe, there’s more to God than an hour on Sunday? Maybe if you just say “yes” to that committee and volunteer to work the nursery once a quarter then all your wondering about what it would be like to experience a raw, unedited, intimate, and unfiltered relationship with your Creator will be set aside like a church bulletin on Monday morning and you can go back to being comfortable.

Peck, peck. Peck, peck.

What are you pecking at, in spite of your better judgment, hoping that it will change?

Only you can answer that.

If you’re pecking at your job, ask God to point you in a direction suitable for the gifts and talents He gave you. He has “prepared good works in advance for you to do” (Ephesians 2:10). God will be more than happy to help you find your divinely designed sweet spot.

If you’re pecking at your dating relationship, ask God to help you discern between red flags and jitters. And as you do, write this down where you can see it everyday: Your absolute worst day as a single person is absolute heaven compared to your best day in a bad marriage.

If you’re pecking while you watch your friend’s addictive behavior send them into a death spiral, ask God for courage to do the right thing and intervene. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). Better to speak truth into their life and have it rejected than to remain silent. There are some regrets you can’t afford to live with.

If you’re pecking at your relationship with God, ask God for more of God. Ask Him to help you break free of your comfortable ideas of who He is and allow Him to define Himself and His relationship to you by His own terms. It’s scary to let go of the familiar. Yet there is freedom when we finally do.

For what it’s worth, it’s that last one that I’ve been pecking on. Moving away from my ideas about God and moving toward God as He defines Himself. I still come back to the pebble sometimes, but I’m getting better at not holding it in my beak so long. Hopefully the sparrows and I are getting smarter about that.

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

I’ve learned something about me and grocery store check out lanes. On the regular ones, the cart ahead of me can have 2 items or 22 items or 222 items. It can be so sparsely filled that you can see through the wire mesh to the tiled floor. Or it can be piled to the ceiling with coffee and condiments and draped with six packs of Cokes and Coors hanging off the sides like a wagon headed down the Oregon Trail. Either way, I’m abounding with patience and grace.

It’s the Express Lane that turns me into a number crunching legalist.

“Express Lane…Ten Items Or Less. Please be courteous to other customers.” That’s what the sign says. And you can be sure I’m looking to see how much courtesy the shoppers in front of me are extending.

The man reaching for his wallet three people ahead of me has two cans of tuna and a loaf of bread. He must be a kind man since he obviously respects the rules of the Express Lane. God bless him. Though he’d be extending a little more courtesy if he’d use a speedy debit card instead of taking us all back in time to 1978 by reminding us how long it takes to write a check.

The married couple two spots ahead of me are here with two little boys using the cart for a jungle gym and are grabbing for every candy bar and pack of gum they can see. With these distractions to contend with, they could be forgiven for miscounting and having eleven items. But the blond-haired pony-tailed checkout girl slides seven items across the scanner as the Dad tosses Thing 1 over his shoulder while Mom grabs the groceries in one hand and the arm of Thing 2 with the other.

The line is moving. I’m now within range. With only a club sandwich and an iced green tea to purchase, I am extending enormous amounts of generous and beneficent courtesy to those behind me. Just one small item in each hand. They should all be grateful to me. For them to bow a little as I glance over my shoulder, holding up my two items for everyone to see would be a bit too much. After all, I could be in line to buy a single box of Tic Tac’s. Then they would really owe me. Still, with a mere two bar codes I’m blessing their day by not taking their time.

The lady ahead of me has a blue basket. To my trained eye, it looks a little too full. Maybe there’s one really big bag of potatoes in there making it seem more loaded than it really is.

A box of frozen mini pizzas. Hot Pockets, two boxes. Five cans of tuna.

Tuna must be on sale today.

I start Express Lane profiling. She’s wearing scrubs. A nurse or an X-ray tech, perhaps. Maybe a dental hygienist. If so, I know she can count at least to 32. No wild offspring with her like the couple that was ahead of her, who are now in the parking lot trying to bungee cord their boys into car seats. So we can’t grant any grace for grocery store grabbiness.

A can of Rotel. The mild kind. Not the habenero kind that makes your hair bleed. That’s nine items.

Corn tortillas. That’s ten. Ten items allowed. Ten items scanned.

That’s it. Ten up, ten down. Thanks for visiting the United Express Lane.

But the basket….

The blue basket that should be empty is not empty. Blonde-haired pony-tailed checkout girl reaches into the bottom and pulls out a package of pork chops. Six of them.

Nefarious enough to exceed the ten item limit of the express lane, but to scan six pork chops cleverly shrink wrapped into one item takes passive aggressive to a new level. Technically, we are now at 16 items. If we could give tickets for speeding in this lane, she would be going straight before the judge.

I’m now looking at this blatant offender. Is she fumbling with her purse? Kneeling down pretending to tie her shoe? Is she doing anything at all to make it appear that she was ignorant of the fact that she has exceeded the Express Lane limit?

No. She is standing there like she meant to do it. Imagine! The gall!

Certainly blond-haired pony-tailed checkout girl will at least shoot me a sympathetic look. A “Hey, don’t think I didn’t notice that she just slipped a package of chops in here at number 11.” But she doesn’t. She just scans it and stuffs it in the plastic bag like it was item number 3 or number 5.

If the keepers of the Express Lane fail to uphold the rules of said Express Lane, what is left for us to do?

I look behind me to see if anyone else notices that the level ten ceiling has been broken, but no one is paying attention. They are reading magazines or talking to each other about inane things like what they’re going to cook for dinner tonight.

All that needs happen for anarchy to reign in the Express Lane is for good shoppers to do nothing.

With the injustice pouring over me, blond-haired pony-tailed checkout girl reaches again into the basket and pulls out another package of pork chops. Six of them. Drat you evil shrink wrap! You’ve conspired to allow this woman to flaunt the rules of the Express Lane by technically allowing her 22 items.

The transaction is made. The receipt stuffed in her pocket. At the very least, two items two many.

I pay for my sandwich and my tea. With a debit card and room for eight potential items to spare. Yes. I am the king of the Express Lane. I do it the right way. Everyone should be like me.

That’s what I was telling myself when I looked up and saw I was walking through the wrong automatic door. The one with the big red “Stop – Wrong Way” sign on the glass that said “Entrance” with an arrow pointing to the other door with a big green “Go” sign on the glass that said “Exit”.

I don’t think I have to tell you that the irony, and the lesson, was completely lost on me until I got into my car and drove away.

“God, you know so well all of my sins and you know how stupid I am.” – Psalm 69:5 (The Living Bible)

“Everyone wants to see justice done….to somebody else.” – Bruce Cockburn

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

As good literature proves, without tension there is no story. Enter the antagonist. These are the bad guys and the bad girls. They stand opposed to, struggle against, or compete with the good guys. Their flaws are more obvious than the good guys’, making it much easier for us to dislike, if not hate them.

We cheer the hero. We boo the villain. We find ourselves drawn to the struggle of the heroine. We wonder how the villainess could be so evil. We read on, hoping at each turn of the page that justice will be served.

Simply put, we identify with the good guys. And the good girls. We see ourselves as the protagonist. The hero. Because, really? Why would anyone want to be the zero?

On Sunday morning, walking out the door to church I heard a radio preacher reading from Luke 17. It’s the account of Jesus healing ten lepers. Ostracized and isolated because of their disease, cultural law required them to keep away from the general public. When anyone approached, they were required to yell, “Unclean! Unclean!” as a warning for passers by to keep their distance. Difficult enough to cope with the physical deformities of disease. How emotionally awful would it be to verbally remind yourself and others that you are an outcast?

You likely know the account. The lepers cry out to Jesus as He passes by. “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” And Jesus does just that, telling them to go show themselves to the priest. As they go, they are healed.

The Bible says that one man, upon realizing his healing, runs back to Jesus. Throwing himself at Jesus’ feet he thanks Him profusely. Jesus wonders out loud about the other nine. Did He not heal them, too?

I grew up in the church. From the week that I was born. In 47 years I’ve heard many sermons and Sunday School lessons on Luke 17. I’ve read the passage in my personal time with God. I’ve studied it in seminary classes. I’ve taught the passage in Bible studies. Yet on this Sunday morning the thought occurs to me that in 47 years I’ve always lined myself up with the one who came back to say thanks.

More importantly, in 47 years I’ve never lined myself up with the ungrateful ones who grabbed their healing and walked away, never returning to say “thank you” to their Healer.

I’ve always seen myself as the good guy.

And that’s a problem.

There is an inherent danger to always seeing ourselves as the good guy. Especially when reading the Bible. In fact, I would argue that if we insist on seeing ourselves as the protagonist when studying God’s Word we miss much, if not all, of what God wants us to learn.

We read that Jesus healed the lepers and only one came back to say thanks. We think to ourselves, “That’s me. I would have said thanks.” Really? Are we really that grateful? Do we go through our days keenly aware of every good thing God does for us? Do we always remember to say “thank you”? I can’t speak for you, but I’m not that consistent. And if in my study of God’s Word I always see myself as the good guy then I don’t have to do the hard thinking about all my failures. Or about all the areas of my life that need to improve.

In reading this account, what would happen if we said, “I’m just like the nine who never said thanks.”

If we read the Bible seeing ourselves as the good guy who always agrees with Jesus, it’s quite possible to read the entire Book and never learn a thing. To always imagine ourselves standing at Jesus’ side in righteous agreement with everything He says is to miss the point. Apart from Christ, we are the antagonists. We are the bad guys. The Bible goes as far as to say we were born the bad guys. David says in Psalm 51, “in sin did my mother conceive me”. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that you and I by our very nature are “children of wrath”. Which is to say the only good in us is there because of Who Jesus is.

Here’s an idea. From now on when you read your Bible, identify the person or persons in the text who have the most to learn. Whatever their particular fault is, be they short-sighted, obstinate, arrogant, self-righteous, ungrateful, legalistic, or just plain opposed to God…line yourself up with that person. Line yourself up with the antagonist and say, “That’s me.” Then read the account again and ask God to show you what He wants to teach you.

Oh, and about that account of the ten lepers Jesus healed? The ending has a twist.  The one who came back to say thanks?

He was a Samaritan. A sworn enemy of Jews like Jesus.

It was the bad guy who came back to say thanks.

Could it be we’ll all experience a better ending if we start reading the Scriptures from the perspective of the bad guy?

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

In a sentence…I have allowed my burden to become an idol.

For my readers who don’t know me, four years ago my spouse chose to walk away from our marriage. I didn’t want that. My daughters didn’t want that. We were (and continue to be) left bouncing in the wake of the consequences created by her decisions.

The burdens I’ve been carrying since; burdens of abandonment, betrayal, loneliness, starting life over from scratch without a network in a new state is but a short list of what has dominated my thoughts. Not to mention the constant fear she would again someday pick up and relocate our children again. I have allowed these burdens, by the amount of time spent fretting and obsessing over them, to become an idol. By definition, an idol is something to which time and devotion are paid. I have paid too much time and far too much attention to my burdens of the past four years. They have become idols at the expense of time and attention focusing on God’s sovereignty over my life.

Are my burdens real? Absolutely. I can’t begin to describe the profound loneliness of beginning life over in a place you never wanted to live where you know no one, leaving behind 14 years of deeply invested friendships, ministry, network, jobs and every good thing that feeds your soul. Add to that the burden of single parenting, a job God never intended in His original design of family, cover it all with a daily feeling of being “on the outside looking in” and it’s a small start in communicating what a head-banging process this has been.

My burdens are real. They are heavy. And they may not go away anytime soon. Yet in focusing on them, both knowingly and unknowingly, I have allowed these burdens to become an idol. Like a man examining a stain on his necktie, my vision has become myopic. I’ve become oblivious to the larger environment around me, the environment over which God is fully sovereign. Focusing on my burdens has created in me a spirit of fear. I’ve been waiting and worrying over the next bad thing that could happen instead of acknowledging God and His perfect love that casts out fear. To, even in one’s mind, relegate God in any way as subject to one’s circumstances is sin.

One would think a seminary graduate would have this figured out. But there is a big difference between head knowledge and heart assurance. At some point all of us will experience a life event that forces us to decide whether or not we will “own” our theology. When life is full of everything happy and circumstances are favorable, it’s easy to pay lip service to the goodness of God. When life kicks you in the head and takes away most or all of what you value, the question is unavoidable. Is God still good when life is not?

In the wake of my spouse walking away, my friend Jerry Sittser told me, “In God’s big-picture drama, people who walk out of your life are small players. As painful and horrible as this situation is, there is nothing anyone can do to thwart God’s purposes for your life. Or for the lives of your children.” This is a true statement. Yet in my pain I lost sight of this. God, in my mind, became subject to the decisions of my ex-spouse. Instead of rightly seeing God as in control of His universe (and mine) in the middle of my awful situation I viewed Him as subject to my rotten circumstances instead of sovereign over the details of my life.

Psalm 34 calls us to “magnify the Lord and exalt His name” and that in doing so God will “deliver us from all our fears.” In allowing my burdens to become an idol, I’ve done the opposite. In magnifying my fears I have minimized God. That in itself is grievous. Yet the arrogance of this sin is magnified by the irony that my spirit of fear has been cultivated while surrounded by God’s blessings. I’ve lamented to God the burden of moving to and surviving in a place where I knew no one, while across the room sits a cabinet full of customer files, every one of them a stranger until God brought them into my life. I’ve lamented to God the burden of leaving behind the bonds of an established church family, while the members and friends at Turning Point Church, many of whom don’t even know me that well, have consistently prayed for me and cared for my daughters as if they were their own. I’ve lamented to God my burden of loneliness, and in doing so treated God as if He hasn’t been here for every tear and every sleepless night.

While I’ve been guilty of treating God as though He is subject to my circumstances, true to form God has been incredibly patient and kind with me. He has, in ways big and small, used these same circumstances to remind and encourage me that He transcends everything I can see and imagine. He really does “cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose”. After disappointments in my job, He surprises me with unexpected sales. Or sitting in church, missing all my friends and ministry in Arizona, a hand on my shoulder and a voice saying, “You’ve been on my heart a lot. Let me pray for you.” Or in moments of deeply felt insignificance someone saying, “Thanks for what you said in your sermon. God really used it in my life.” And even in ways far outside the box like a guy named Bob at Sam’s Club in Roswell, New Mexico who offers to pray for me while filling my car at the gas pump.

If I’d spent as much time looking for God in the details as I’ve spent focusing on my fears, how different would my life look?

So there you have it. My confession. And my resolution to stop living from a spirit of fear. God’s arm is not too short to save. There’s nothing that will happen in my life that He’s not already aware of. The fact that I am still here is proof of His provision. He promises to give me a hope and a future. He promises not to quit working on me. And He promises to “restore all the years that the locusts have eaten”. I have no idea how He will do that, but I look forward to seeing it.

In the meantime, my burdens may not get lighter. My situation may not change. It may get worse. But it doesn’t matter because God is on His throne. He loves me. I don’t know why. But He does. And His promises are bigger than my fearful circumstances.

Or as He says, “If I (God) am for you, who can be against you?”

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Marcelle and Oscar were a wonderful elderly couple in my church back in Chandler, Arizona. Their story was storybook. They met and married overseas during the war. She was a singer and performer in the USO, entertaining the troops and sharing the stage with people like Bob Hope. Oscar was an Air Force man. To look through their scrapbook is to see a glimpse of the honor and service to country that defined the “greatest generation”.

When I met them for the first time they had been married about 50 years. Marcelle would smile and laugh and hug you. Oscar would greet you and shake your hand in the parking lot where you’d find him leaning on his oxygen tank, finishing off a cigarette. They were absolutely delightful people and dearly loved.

On this particular Sunday Pastor Duane asked the congregation to share any prayer requests they might have. Marcelle, by this time using a walker to get around, labored to her feet. In her French accent, she said…

“Please pray that I will stop bitching at Oscar.”

Once everyone got past the “did someone just say “bitching” in church?” I’d lay dollars to doughnuts that everyone who heard Marcelle’s request were silently saying “Amen!”.Why? Because it was an honest request. Happily married for nearly five decades, they were still two imperfect human beings dealing with one another’s quirks and indiosyncrasies. Marcelle was just keeping it real.

I absolutely loved Marcelle’s request. It was honest. It’s where every married couple lives at one time or another. Some might argue there was a better way to say it. A kinder, gentler way, perhaps. Maybe “please pray that I be more patient in my marriage”. That communicates, I suppose.

Kind of.

Sort of.

Maybe.

But…

“…pray that I will stop bitching at my husband”?

That preaches.

People who live in the real world can relate to that. Someone once asked Billy Graham’s wife Ruth if she’d ever considered divorce. She answered, “Divorce? Never. Murder? Often.”

Honest prayer. What does it look like? If we take our finger off the edit key and really pray our heart, does it have any resemblance to what we hear in church on a Sunday morning? (Marcelle’s example, notwithstanding.)

A couple weeks ago during worship our Praise Band was leading with a song called “Enough”. The lyrics, in part, say, “All of You (God) is more than enough for all of me…”In the middle of the song I picked up my journal and with a black rollerball scrawled, “What’s going on inside of me when all of God isn’t enough?”

Then the conditioned Christian part of me wondered, “Is that too honest? Is that too brazen? To wonder, out loud on paper in the middle of worship, if God really is enough?” In that moment the thought that God is more than enough was butting hard against my apparent glaring needs and desperate long-prayed prayers still unanswered.

Is it ever appropriate to say, “God, right now, you don’t seem like enough.”?

Is there such a thing as being too honest in prayer? Is it appropriate to censor ourselves? Or is that folly in the face of an omniscient God? As if we can hit the backspace or delete button when we think we’ve said too much or said it too harshly. Where’s the line between remembering we are talking to a perfect holy God and pouring out our heart?

Or could it be that because He is the perfect holy God, there’s no line to worry about?

Jeremiah, the Lamenter, penned one of the most visceral lines in all of Scripture when he cried, “He (God) has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust. My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness. So I say, “My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:16-18)

In that moment, Jeremiah is not singing “all of God, is more than enough for all of me.” He’s saying, “I feel like God’s pushed my face in the dirt and I’ve come up with a mouth full of rocks. I’m miserable. I’ve got nothing left in the tank and I’m done hoping God will ever help me.”

Ever feel that way?

Or, better question, ever feel that way and tell God you feel that way?

What’s your prayer request? What is it that you want to tell God?

Whatever it is, remember Marcelle’s example.

Be honest.

And keep it real.

“As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, and He (God) will hear my voice. He will redeem my soul in peace from the battle which is against me…Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” – Psalm 55:16-18, 22

  Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com