My cough is keeping me up tonight. Strangely I feel happy otherwise. I guess it has been my contemplations on Psalm 23. I don't get why we so often read this at funerals. It is kind of like reading someone else’s testimony (David's in this case) to a bunch of grieving people who need to wrestle with life in front of them. Yes the God part of the testimony is comforting. Job would have written it differently... so would have Jacob, Paul, or John the Baptist.

I am going to preach on Psalm 23 at Central City Community Church on Sunday -- if I have the strength God provides. I am not going to tell them that if they turn to God everything will be immediately OK. I trust the Character of God. I know the Character of "Sheep"... that going astray part and going our own way part... (Isaiah 53 kinda costly part). Rather, what do we need to do in order to allow God to reorder our lives so that we have a testimony too? I like Zachariah's Testimony in Luke 1... Kinda shut's up the mouth a bit after so many years of struggling with faithfulness only to find oneself thrust into a history of God's making rather than your own. David anointed King -- for many years a fugitive -- was just that kind of person... so was many of my hero's of faith:

Desmond Tutu, Keith Green, Amy Carmichael, Juan Carlos Ortiz, Oscar Romero, Soren Kierkegaard, John Perkins, Dr. Martin Luther King, John Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dr. James Loder, Toyohiko Kagawa of Japan... and many others...

Reality has to go through a being turned inside out process... Who is in control of "my reality"... Like the Emmaus road in Luke 24... human pride has to hit the skids big time and fail... (facing this is what the best of the 12 Steps of AA and NA are all about).

So you want to be anointed like King David??? Psalm 23... Live into this: "The least in the Kingdom of God is greater than John the Baptist" (Jesus). Cry out to God... We need the Spirit's anointing oil poured out on us... But don't think for a Momment that personal comfort is the end point to the journey. Only the very sick are comfortable with the brokeness of the world as it is... Ministry, Mission, Love Sweat and Tears awaits us all.