"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."

Abraham Lincoln said the quote you just read. Sadly, I feel like that could be used as a metaphorical application of my "today". While I've already had coffee & have not have tea (of course.. sorry England) I do not seem to be starting off the day like those Folgers coffee commericals (with a warm smell & awake feeling that nothing can ruin my day). See, right now it is 11:07am. What's so special about 11:07am? Well, right now I should have been amidst a church planters conference with about 12 church planters (followed by lunch with a pastor & talking about his church planting story/calling story & mine). Sadly, that did not happen. I guess he forgot he was supposed to meet me.. & his phone went straight to voicemail (probably due to the planters meeting starting 15 min. after we were set to meet up). So, there goes a wasted class skip on my part.. oh well. I was really looking forward to today (I even went to bed before 2am so I'd be awake haha). Another song lyric comes to mind though:

"Everything starts where it ends."-- lovedrug

I have to really pay attention to those words right now. Is every ending really a beginning of sorts? So then, maybe today was a beginning of me seeing how bad I really want this.. beyond words.. beyond meeting with people and talking and learning.. but to the point of crying out to God that he is still faithful and in charge even if today's plan.. or tomorrow's (or the day after) doesn't work out. Maybe, just maybe, a meeting can't teach you or me that. Maybe I have to be forgotten in order to be remembered. Maybe I have to lose in order to win. Maybe I have to show up when others don't in order to lead. Maybe through not understanding I will be understood (& empathetic with many people).

God cannot be boxed into a church planter's meeting anyways. I know that. I know that I won't really learn the proper way to lead or grow or bind up the broken-hearted or worried or sick or damaged & oppressed through any meeting. It is God who weighs the heart. It is God who searches me & knows me completely. It is God that uses the same sun to both harden the clay... and yet also to melt the ice.. butter.. wax etc. Will I be clay & be reduced to a hardened stone heart? May it never be!

I will be like wax, ice & butter before the LORD's plan. I will melt with joy & anticipation even through patience & waiting on him through his word! His word endures forever & cannot deny himself. And so, I have no worries. I have only to love.. and the rest will happen in time. A people, a nation, a world cannot stifle love... not but for a moment.. and so I wait patiently knowing that My God is not boxed in & a botched meeting does nothing to effect his grand plan of love!