Laura and Hannah Grace went to a girls' deal today. Joel had ball practice so I took him there and hung out with him. Afterwards, we decided to go eat at Pizza Hut. We were talking while waiting for our pizza to come out (hand tossed meat lovers which Joel pronounced awesome). I decided to shoot Joel with a spitball. He laughed. I shot him again. And again. It took about 3-4 times before he retaliated. He was concerned about getting caught by the waitresses and so I could watch his eyes to see if they were coming. After a few minutes, one of us suggested that we should probably stop so we called a truce. Who do you think suggested we should probably stop? The answer is at the end.
It was pretty fun to have a spitball fight with Joel. We were not actually using much spit, but we had straws, straw paper, and a glass of water. In fact, I shot my straw paper at Joel before the spitball fight started up. It takes a few minutes for pizzas to cook. With that kind of time, if you have 2 guys with straws, paper, and water, it is pretty likely that a spitball is going to be fired at some point.
Joel's advantage tonight was that he is smaller and could slide under the table for cover easier. I was wearing a cap that I hid behind. We did not fire too many or make too big of a mess which is probably good since we offered to pray for our waitress. She did not suggest that we pray for someone to clean up our mess. So, that's a good sign. When we asked her if there was anything we could pray for her about (like job, family, or health I said), she said everything. Wow, that's a pretty big prayer request. We actually left our area pretty clean.
It is kind of natural for boys to want to play games like spitball. It just comes with being a boy for most of us. There are some things that just sort of come with loving Jesus. I remember when we went to China to adopt Joel, God allowed us the very cool opportunity of meeting a Chinese believer. He was in his 20's and loved Jesus. When we found out that he was a believer, I asked him if there was somewhere safe that I could talk with him about his relationship with the Lord. He grinned and said yes and so we met. Guess what he brought with him? He brought his Bible and some Scripture memory cards that he was working on. Guess what we talked about for 2 hours? We talked about Bible study, prayer, sharing our faith, and life in the church (worship, getting to know other believers, etc). Those are the kinds of things people who love Jesus do. It was really kind of amazing to me how we instantly connected. I was/am married, white, and American. He was (not sure about now) young, Chinese, and single. I'm pretty sure he's still Chinese, but not sure about the single part. For 2 hours the conversation just flowed. It was so interesting to hear about how he came to Christ and how he had grown in his faith. There were so many things that were different and yet so many things that were the same. He had been arrested for sharing his faith. His best church experience was in an underground church. That was very different from me. Yet, we both loved God's word, loved to worship, knew we needed to rely on the Holy Spirit, and needed godly friends and mentors.
If things like loving God's word, sharing your faith, loving to worship, enjoying praying with others are not natural for you, it's time to check out your relationship with Christ. Of course, there are times when our desire for the Word or worship wanes a bit, but that should not be our all the time experience. If we love Jesus, that will manifest in our lives. Jesus said in John 14:21, " He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him."
Joel is the one that suggested that we should probably stop the spitball fight.
Glad for companions in the abundant life
Barry
3 things I thank God for today
1. Spitball fights with Joel
2. Meat lovers' pizza
3. The color purple in a sunset
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