I will never forget my first trip deer hunting. I was invited to hunt on a friend’s cousin’s family land. It was very early morning, we were all walking quietly through the woods to our stands and suddenly this flash of brown and white bounded into the trail several of us were walking. This deer immediately turned running down the trail away from us. Before I could, think, look, or even aim, I hurled my shot gun into the air and fired. Of course I missed and thankfully so. The deer was a doe, it wasn’t doe season, the hunter’s morning was pretty much ruined, and I’m sure I was voted most popular by this deer hunting family that hardly knew me.

This morning I was reading in Psalm 11 about how God loves “righteous” deeds and how the “upright” will behold God’s face. What an awesome invitation from God. Basically if we are righteous we will experience God, face to face, up close and personal. I’m coming to believe that righteousness is more about aim than it is about adherence to a code. Sort of like deer hunting.

I don’t know about you but the word righteous has always evoked one of two emotions in me. One, I picture Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s world saying things like “Righteous guitar solo duuuude!” The other I picture Pharisaical types looking down their nose at the rest of us saying you should be “righteous” like me…and God. So if you have to be righteous to see God, that has never sounded very appealing to me.

So today I thought I’d do some research on the word righteous. I had the time since my current occupation is church planter (ie unemployed). For the Jews being righteous is much more than living by a code or set of rules and regulations. The words righteous and upright were used by the Jews to mean pretty much the same thing. To live “strait.” They saw righteousness as something God has and allows to flow into our lives. God even said Job was “perfect” in righteousness. That doesn’t mean he was sinless it just means he let God flow into every arena of his existence. All parts of Job’s life were open to God.

Being righteous happens when people let God flow though their lives at every level. It is living “Strait”; pointed toward a purpose. It means aiming God at every corner of your life and pulling the trigger. Righteous living is getting up every day and having a target. It is not wildly shooting at life from the hip. It is not vainly attempting to shoot down every thing that pops up in our path through the day. It is getting up and knowing God is our target and letting him permeate everything we do through the day.

I once saw a bumper sticker that said “I missed my ex-wife…but my aim is getting better.” I sure hope my aim is getting better as I get up and try to target God each new day. Here’s to daily target practice, lots of misses, a few bulls eyes, but ever increasing accuracy in our walk.

We are Cheese Heads!

We are officially residents of Saukville, Wisconsin. I spent this morning hanging out in Carol’s Coffee shop, what is sure to be my new haunt, talking with some new friends. We are settling in to our new neighborhood.

We had a rough couple of days transitioning to life in Wisconsin. In fact the night we arrived we couldn’t find our street. The reality hit us that we were about to be living on a street we had never been to in a house we had never seen. We were all a little overwhelmed the first night and into the second day. In fact we discussed just not unloading the Uhaul and turning around and going back to Arkansas. Thank God we didn’t.

Our friends Bill & Cathy, Dave & Sue, and Tim & Lisa came on Sunday and moved us in. They hoisted all our heavy junk, including a piano, up and down two stories and a basement. They even brought us homemade food and gave us a love gift from New Life Community Church. God has so blessed us by having friends like those at New Life.

After the first couple of days here Bailey and Maizey have already made several friends. The kids on our block all come out and play after school everyday. We live at the top of the tallest hill in our neighborhood. Needless to say that attracts all kinds of kids on bikes and skateboards.

The neighbors have been great. Coming over and welcoming us to the community, bringing us bread and treats for Tallulah. There is a real community feel in this area. I’ve already met some great people and think I will meet many more.

I start sometime in the next couple of weeks with UPS working as a Driver Helper over the holidays. Hopefully that may turn into something full time. Thanks for all your prayers family and friends. We are reaping the results of them like never before in our lives. And, I say that from the bottom of my heart. We love you and will keep you posted. By the way, it has been in the 70s but we are due to get some snow on Friday…Here we go with our 1st Wisconsin Winter.

Here we are in front of our Townhouse. We have great Landlords. John and Sue. Say a prayer for them this week. John is battling Leukemia and Sue is having surgery tomorrow. I think we have landed exactly where God wanted us to be. God bless.