Psalm 66

66 seems like a scary number- read at your own risk: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2066&version=NIV

The last verse stood out to me:

Praise be to God,
    who has not rejected my prayer
    or withheld his love from me!

Last night I wasn’t in a good place. It had been an especially long week- I think it had been at least two weeks since a day off and even that I’m not certain on. Had done a ton of work on our upcoming VBS, voters meeting, worship service and I threw a pretty amazing video for the youth to celebrate Camp Perkins even though we couldn’t go. I was stoked about the work I’d done. Then of course my most consistent youth group ever doesn’t show up to zoom at the usual time. I fumble my words saying dad instead of grandpa in asking about their life and did a similar word salad mix up with the next person who came on. I went to show the video and there was no sound on zoom. The Bible study went great and eventually most of the folks got on but I was so mad at myself.

I had high hopes as I knew how awesome the night would be in my head and I screwed it up. I’ve done similar things before. When you live alone and have nothing else to focus on it’s easy to reject yourself and with hold love from yourself. Also I think my phone is killing me. I’ve decided to block people on it and try to use it less which has always felt wrong before. Not blocking people I actually know just politicians and celebrities make me angry. But at the same time when you live alone in quarantine you need the phone. Much like people who need to lose weight- also me- still have to eat.

So I got away today. There’s a lot that needs to be done and I just said- no not now- not today. Got away, sat near a waterfall and finished reading Bob Goff’s new book, “Dream big” ended in a real tear jerking story- but everybody always is my favorite out of Bob’s work. Anyway, before all that it talked about failing huge. Go big. He shared many of his failures and yet he said fail trying, don’t fail watching. Well I felt good knowing I failed trying not watching. I was doing the best I could just technology got in the way- and even though the kids didn’t get to see the video the way I wanted them too- I still have the video and can share it in other ways. And maybe we’ll do it again.

That’s the best part. Rarely in life do you get one shot at something. You almost always get a bunch. So things I used to get very dramatic about- well that children’s message or that Bible study didn’t go well. Guess what? I get to do another one next week and hopefully that one will be better. It’s highly unlikely it will go as bad as I think it did and most people are much less critical of me than I am.

So anyway, all of that to say I’m glad that when I reject me- God doesn’t. God provided the means to find the perfect spot to weather a 100 degree day and the words of Bob Goff to give me some grace. Dream big- keep moving forward- fail trying. Know that God’s love is still there when you fail and He doesn’t reject your prayer nor you. May we love ourselves in some similar way to how He loves us.