Good morning, God--it's been a while, hasn't it? And that "while" has included a move to a new town, over 6,000 miles of driving to go visit family and friends, setting up a new house and getting things organized, getting ready to start a new job, and all sorts of other things that have kept me busy and focused in different directions. Not away from you, so much, as away from writing to you. And I suppose that in some sense, those two concepts are similar to each other.
Whenever we go through significant changes like the one we're going through now, I know that it's important to stay grounded in something that's long-lasting, permanent even. With that in mind, it seems fairly obvious that continuing to write to you here would be a great way to stay focused and to keep my mind on things of eternity rather than things of here and now. However, that hasn't happened. It's not like I've lost my faith or turned my back on you, just that so many other things have demanded my attention that it's been difficult to find time to sit down and do something like this.
And that, I believe, is one of the biggest problems that I face. Change is a constant in my life--I don't believe in stagnation or beating dead horses--and because of that, my mind is constantly caught up in what I need to do to make things work in new and different ways. This is a problem because it gets me to put you lower on my list of priorities, which causes me to have much less contact with you on a personal level. And I need that contact.
Many people have pointed out just how important daily prayer is, daily contact with God, no matter what the level. All people pray differently, of course, and writing to you is easily my most effective method of praying. It gets me focused on you, on something outside of the daily grind, something eternal as opposed to something fleeting.
I don't think it upsets you when I don't write, or even when I don't pray. You know who I am, and you know the struggles I go through and the victories I win, and you're not a God who gets upset--because we all know that getting upset is pretty petty and does no good, and who would accuse you of being a petty god? Not me!
So with this letter, I reestablish contact. I thank you for the safe travels, both in our move and our visits back east. I thank you for a comfortable place to live and the food we have to eat. I thank you for the great relationship with my great wife, who is very supportive and very flexible, and who has been willing to make the moves that have been necessary. I thank you for the people in our lives, and the job that I found that brought us here. And I thank you for life, and for the chance to live here on this amazing world of yours.
