Mostly, reading this blog is like looking over my shoulder while I think out loud via the keyboard. There’s not much here that’s polished, edited, re-written or carefully constructed over time. Typically, I write for a few minutes, throw in a few photographs, click “publish” and then move on to my other work.

Today, however, after 623 words of “thinking out loud,” I’ve decided to move that file over to the “probably should be in my new book” folder, and wrestle with it some more. I’ve been thinking about faith, and I’ve been mining a vein of thought regarding how Christianity so frequently (and so easily) slips from living faith into just one more religion, and I’ve realized my thinking needs more than a blog post or two to develop.

BABY TALK: So I’ve switched gears to the brief Skype “conversation” I had with our granddaughter, Rebekah Mae, yesterday afternoon. Increasingly, Naomi and Craig have been calling her “Beks,” so I guess we’ll have to see where that goes.

The big thing right now – she’s four-months today – is getting her to look my way – via the Skype camera – when I call her name. Yesterday she kind of peered over her shoulder a few times and gave me the little smile you see here (opening photo, above). She’s completely fascinated with her mother, so getting her to look away and into a computer screen involves me making some very silly noises!

Skype is wonderful! It helps us maintain a very interactive relationship with her two-year-old brother, David, and I can’t say enough good things about it. Skype is such a quantum leap from the disembodied sound of a voice over the telephone. But Skype remains light-years removed from actual presence. I want to hold her; I want to reach out through the screen and feel her little fingers and toes, I want to occupy the same space.

CONNECTIONS: This is what is amazing and mysterious about our “unsearchable” relationship with God. We can’t see God; we can’t speak with God on the phone; we can’t make a Skype call. But our spiritual connection is as real as getting off the plane in Connecticut and actually being there with my grandchildren! God – via the Holy Spirit – literally dwells inside us, accompanies us through every moment and detail of our lives, and speaks power, purpose, and presence with compelling clarity.

I wish I could explain it better; I just know that because of Jesus – because God loved me enough to break into time and space via the life of a child, born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, because Jesus gave everything for me, because he walks with me today – my relationship with God is real and vital and growing.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. (Colossians 2:6-7)

– DEREK