YONDER BREAKS

It's always been difficult for me to connect with God during a worship service. I'm not sure why -- I am a musician after all, so you'd think it would be my first choice of meeting God. But for some reason it's rare that I really feel my spirit connect with God's during the musical part of a worship service. This Christmas season, I found myself at  St. Andrew's Church  in Mt. Pleasant. I owe a lot to this church, having gone here often in high school and always coming away a better person, as well as being continually impressed with their community. It was actually on a St. Andrew's trip to  Creation Festival  that I made the public declaration of faith that changed my life. Sixteen years later, I still see the light of Jesus in this place. Despite the tremendous quality of this church and its worship team, as I stood in the pew with good friends singing Christmas carols and worship songs, I still felt disconnected. We might as well have been sing...

A few weeks ago, all I wanted to do was surf. It had been a while, but a friend invited me out and so the prospect was there. A couple contingencies blocked my path though: my oldest daughter needed to be napping and my youngest needed to stay quiet while she was napping. As my wife and I rocked our youngest to sleep, watching another episode of  Fixer Upper , I kept a keen eye on the clock, knowing my friend was paddling out at 4pm and that it was already past 3. Unfortunately, the television could not drown out the sound of  both  my daughters crying as the sweet possibility of surfing was slipping away before my eyes. I tried hard to not let my hopes get up for a surf session. When that was becoming less possible, I tried hard to let go of those hopes. But I found myself doing anything but. Downright anxious, all I wanted was for the kids to be quiet so I had a good excuse to go surfing. It was consuming me, making me angry, ir...