Reflections From My Vacation

It's been a long time since I posted a new blog because I have been on a vacation with my family. We went to a cabin on the Susquehanna River just north of the Maryland border. It was beautiful. Here's some things that happened.

Trey caught his first real fish -- a ten inch largemouth -- with a grub jig. It was a man's catch. He wasn't interested in cleaning it or eating it.
Ben caught his first fish ever on his first cast ever.
Christy went for her first canoe ride.
Sheri went for her first canoe ride.
I had a great wipeout on a mountain bike trail.
We saw bald eagles.
We went on great hikes and nature walks.
Sheri and I stayed up late talking and reading.
We colored, painted and played with PlayDoh.
We barbecued a lot. I'm a great barbecuer.
We went rock-hopping on some huge rocks.
Plenty of time for napping.
Early morning time with Jesus.
No media all week. No TV, computer, phone, PDA, nothing.
Unplugging is hard.
Unplugging is great.
Unplugging is essential.

Here's some random thoughts I had:

1. Spending all that time with my family made me realized just how much the church is like a family. It's not a business, an institution or an organization -- it's a family. Families are messy, but families are the truest form of community. That's a really deep thought.

2. I really think the Eagles will have a good season this year. Without the TO distraction, and with a healthy McNabb, Westbrook and Smith, I think we can go far in the NFC.

3. Bald eagles are so cool. I was watching an eagle one morning. He was flying way high, circling over a great blue heron. The heron dove at the water and came out with a fish. The eagle pursued the heron, attacked it with his "large talons" (nod to Napoleon), and forced the heron to drop his fish in order to get away. After the heron released the fish, the eagle went into a steep dive, plucked the fish out of the air, took it to his tree and ate it. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

4. Spending all that time with Jesus and my family made me realize again that I need to be cool with being defined by that primarily. I oftentimes define myself by who I am as a pastor/ministry professional. But if I have them, and only them, I'm good to go. Three things I can do that no one else can:
a. no one else can have me relationship with Jesus for me
b. no one else can be a husband to my wife
c. no one else can be a daddy to my kids

It's good to be home. If vacations were normalcy, they would cease to be vacations. Coming back to Lebanon, I was sort of disappointed, but then I realized that we were coming back to our calling in the Kingdom. Staying at the cabin perpetually would mean bailing on who God intends us to be, it would be to miss out on our destiny. It's good to be home again.