Birthday Present

Today marks the day I was born, 26 years ago.  It feels pretty old, actually, since I’ve known my best friends for now more than half of my life, and we met in middle school.  But it still looks young on paper.  Perhaps I have more room for growth than I care to admit.

However, today also marks a day long in coming.  Today I got a real teaching job.

As you may remember, I’ve been applying to schools all over the area for almost a year.  Several times I got far into the interview process, only to be cut short at the very last step.

One school (I won’t name names, but it was a Christian school no less) practically told me I had the position, then never called.  When I called weeks later, they reaffirmed that I would probably be hired in the next few days.  Then they never called again.  Taking my hint, I didn’t call again until about a month later (three or four months after the thing started)  to make sure it was settled that I didn’t have the job.

“Oh, so and so called you last week and left a voicemail saying that we hired someone else.”

No, she didn’t.  But whatever. I kept looking elsewhere, but with no luck.

Then we moved up here and I started applying to schools in person.  However, the public schools just fired 35 teachers in my county.  They probably weren’t going to hire a noob like me.

It was starting to get really frustrating.  But in the midst of all this searching, God found big and small ways to remind me that his timing was perfect, and that he had a plan for all this.  He led us to this city, to the church we’ve fallen in love with, and to friends we never thought we’d be so close to so soon.  None of this would have happened if I’d gotten a job in the big city, because we wouldn’t live here.

So in one more episode of providential timing, I decided to call and cancel my appointment for the day on a whim.  Surprisingly, my wife supported the decision.  Because I wasn’t occupied, I was able to take a call yesterday morning, out of the blue, inviting me to a job interview at a boarding school ten minutes from my house.  Teaching English (my dream subject) to high schoolers (my dream students) as a long-term substitute.  Today I found out I have the job.

I start in the next few days.  The substitute gig may only run for the six weeks it’s slated for, or it might go to the end of the school year.  It may even turn into something more permanent.  But even if it doesn’t work out for the long run, there can be no doubt for me that God is working all things to my good, not because of any show of patience or virtue on my part but because of his indelible grace that covers me.

Backyard Eden

Today we hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner.  Family members drove up from Florida to stay with us for a few days and we had a great meal this afternoon.  My favorite part was picking vegetables out of our own garden to cook for the meal.  C and I planted our vegetables shortly after moving here, and these two crops reached maturity in time for the feast:

Mustard Greens

Green Beans

I was so excited to pick them out of the garden!  We’ve been watching these guys grow in the hard Georgia clay, getting bigger every week despite my infrequent watering.  It was really amazing for me to see what creation will yield despite my amateur attempts to help.

On the other hand, it reached my soul in a very deep level to harvest and consume something I grew myself.  A fulfilling, deep joy, almost addictive, that makes me look forward to the spring when I can plant in earnest.

Little wonder I feel this way: we’ve been hard-wired since the very beginning to take care of the earth and live close to it.

Genesis 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

 

To dress it and to keep it: the Hebrew can be translated “to work in it and to protect it.”

Our work in the dirt is a mirror of God’s free, gracious attention to us dirty humans: he works in us, to improve us and increase our yield, and he protects us from danger.

Warped and Knotty

I spent another day, among other things, in the wood shop honing my skills.  Today’s project was a small table for our back porch.  This one, made out of scrap pine, is sort of a practice run for a larger al fresco dining table I’ll make out of cedar.  Don’t practice on the expensive stuff.

There are several joints, cuts, etc I was unable to do with my current tools.  I’ve realized this more and more- now that I have some tools to work with, I’m more aware of my abilities and limitations, and my need (my wife would disagree with me here) for more advanced, specific, expensive tools.  A table saw for ripping.  A router for chamfering and dadoes.  Chisels for mortising.  A drill press for boring.

I’m happy to bide my time and save up for my hobby, but today’s project got me thinking about how like grace this tool thing is.

The more grace God gives me, the more I become aware of how much I need– really need–that grace.

I had no idea how warped and knotty the recesses of my soul were until God started to work with me: simple, rough cuts eliminating a lot of material at first, moving on to more complicated and time-consuming work.  But in the end I know that my heart will be a thing of beauty that glorifies the one who made it.  And I hope it’ll look a lot better than my table.

O, Praise Him!

I’m in awe of how amazing it is to be loved and cherished by a God who knows and inspires everything. I really needed some encouragement after a tough day today, and got a really uplifting email out of the blue from a friend.

I figured that C. had just called her, but there was actually no ‘cheating’ involved- she had no idea how much I needed the encouragement, just moving at the impulse of God’s love. God used inauspicious human means to remind me that I matter, however improbably, to him.

Let all things their Creator bless,
and worship him in humbleness,
O praise him, Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
and praise the Spirit, Three in One:
O praise him, O praise him,
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Divinely Arranged

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

Tonight I had the privilege again of playing with Creekstone’s worship team.  I can’t believe how powerfully God is working with that ministry.  What began as one guy with a guitar has- in a month- blossomed into a full band, with piano, mandolins, harmonica, guitars, banjo, violin and drums.  And none of us were recruited- everyone was just drawn to the church and more specifically to music, and God’s been taking care of the rest.  Everyone can play.  Not just strum some chords, everyone can really play.  And people can improvise and change keys at the drop of a hat.  All the vocalists somehow know their place in the 3-or 4-part harmonies that appeared out of thin air.  Everybody’s on the same page and can sense when we’re going to repeat a chorus or crescendo.

The weird thing is, today’s only the second time we’ve ever played together.  Both weeks we’ve gotten the song list together on Friday or Saturday, and only rehearsed for about an hour before we played .

I’m not writing this to boast, except to boast in Christ, who’s drawn together a talented and eclectic group of musicians, and is using our weakness to show his strength: Something like this could never have come together by man’s effort.  God is clearly in charge, he’s clearly at work, and he’s very clearly using the worship team and the whole church to glorify himself.  Let us be empty vessels for filling.

(This isn’t an official part of the service yet, just fellowship music, so don’t freak out.  We’ll eventually get real rehearsals and arrangements together, but God’s not waiting on our schedule.)

for more pictures see http://mckaycaston.com/pictures-of-creekstones-snf-11809 and also (last week’s gathering) http://mckaycaston.com/pics-from-creekstones-first-snf-in-the-commun

Our song list, for anyone interested:

Blessed Be Your Name

The Wonderful Cross

Give Us Clean Hands

Thy Mercy, My God

How Great Is Our God

Daily Bread

Last night we had our friends the Castons over for dinner, and we had a great time.   Homemade rolls, good conversation and very cool kids made for an awesome evening.  In the course of the evening my wife and I were explaining how we got where we are (long story short: Lived with parents for the summer, God wanted us to be there till a certain point, and then within two weeks, with no previous leads, she got a job up here and we found a house and a church).  This summer really taught me how to be patient and trust God and not our own plans, but it’s a lesson I’m still being taught as I don’t have a permanent job and we’re not even sure if this is a permanent house (literally- it might be paved over in a matter of years!).  It occurred to me while we were talking that God gave us exactly what we needed, but no more.  We didn’t win the lottery or anything; I still have to trust him just as much to get me through each day.  That is, of course, what Jesus meant when he told us to pray for our daily bread.  Not a silo full of sustenance or even a week’s supply, just what we need right now.  He’s taking care of the rest, and pray for tomorrow’s bread tomorrow.

If I have a “life verse” that defines what comes up most often between me and God, this passage is it:

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? Matthew 6:25-27

Note: The stature of an average American male is approx. 3.96 cubits (1 cubit in Jesus’ time ≈ 17.5″)