Opening Day, Applebee's & The Goodness of God

Here we are one day removed from, in my opinion, the 2nd greatest day of the year - Opening Day, the first day of a new baseball season. (I say 2nd greatest, but really it's like 5th with anniversaries and my wife's birthday, although I would rank it ahead of my own.) You heard it here first, the Reds will be over .500 this year, the 6 year skid of losing seasons will end. So now that it is conclusive that God is good...on to Applebee's :)

Had the priviledge of enjoying a boys night out over a nice slab of cow with a couple of guys from our Sunday School class tonight. Kyle & Joey really made my day, it was great to swap work stories and hear what life is like for Joey especially, outside of 2 hours on Sunday mornings. Hearing what people with "real" jobs go through M-F made me realize and appreciate again the agony and struggle we must bear as a result of sin. Most of my stories were from the longest 6 months of my life, aka while I worked at Dillard's (don't!). The goodness of God here is that He loved me enough to put me at Dillard's a year and a half ago. Through this my character would be built and tested and I would further steel my convictions to the desperate situation people are in away from Jesus. Without living through that I may not have the level of desire & want to do what I'm doing today. My only wish is that I can get to the end of my life look back and see very few opportunities that I missed to share the Gospel. If only I could live that out more and do more to reach more today!

So in summary, I can't express how much appreciation I have for what Jesus did on that cross. And how much I still don't get it and how much I live each day like it didn't happen!! I was so desperate for some peace at Dillard's- and can relate to the folks Joey works with and what he does day in and day out. All this just makes me marvel at how far from perfect we are-- how far from God we are, and how far He had to come how low He had to stoop to come to us. People ask why bad things happen and why God doesn't do something about it, something to show mercy and save us. He did, His name is Jesus.