"When was the Last Time you Went Roller Skating?"

Up until this past Saturday, the last time I had gone roller skating was when I was in my early teens. Its funny...the skating rink was much like I remembered it when I was a child: The same old skates. The same old signs hanging on the walls. The same disco looking lighting. And the same old fun.

It is funny how you out grow your appreciation for activities like roller skating at some point early in life, but then you reach a point when you have a renewed appreciation for things that had once become old. I suppose what made me enjoy skating all over again was because of the memories it brought up.

I remembered elementary school skate parties (life seemed so much simpler and yet so much bigger back then). I remembered watching my dad skate with his arms around my mom and being amazed at how they could skate together like that (Kimberly and I would kill ourselves in such an attempt). I remember my second cousin who use to run a skating rink in Florida and how he could do flips and spins and other amazing stunts. I remember how my Grandma skated for the first time at the urging of us grandchildren and fell and broke her tail bone (I don't know why I remember that memory as a positive one; I guess because she was willing to break her tail bone to do something fun with her grand kids). The point is, Saturday's skating experience was elevated by my past skating experiences.

The same is true in our journey with Christ. Every day, month, year, decade you walk with Christ, your present experience is elevated by your past experience.

We American Christians are so impatient...myself included...we want everything now. We want the experience of a 50 year journey with Christ in one year. It does not happen. This journey with Christ is about a daily following of him in relationship. It cannot be rushed. Too rush a relationship, is to rob from the relationship.

I think this is why when Moses asked God for his name, God answered, "I Am." God invited Moses and all of us to know him as the "I Am" right now God. Sadly many Christians only know God as "I was". Other Christians are looking for the God, "I will be". But, God says let me be the God, "I Am." Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow may not be. All that you ever have is right now. Let God be the God of right now.

What's happening this very moment in your life? Stress, happiness, sorrow, business, confusion, laughter, work, parenting, marriage, divorce, applying for medicaid...what's going on in your life right now? What if where you are right now is exactly where God wants to give you the opportunity of a life time? And what if the more I learn to walk with him as the God, "I AM," the more your present experience will be amplified by your past steps.

That is one of the reasons we make such a big deal about small groups around here. Each group gives us intentional community in which together we can experience God as "I AM" and every day I experience that I am paving the way for a deeper, richer and more mature relationship with him tomorrow.