Why I Do This

Welcome to Scattered Moments. You know, every once in a while somebody asks me why I do this. Why do I go upstairs into my little home office every night at around 8 p.m., close the door, turn on a microphone, and spend the next 45 minutes or so making a podcast? And the answer is, well, I'm not really sure. It started as something creative and then turned into a hobby, and along the way, I think it's become a spiritual discipline. Some people pray in the prayer closet, some people journal, some people take long walks. I do all three, but apparently I go upstairs and I also talk into a microphone, and I love it. I love finding some forgotten story from history and sharing it. I love opening up a psalm and sitting with it long enough for one little phrase to catch fire. I love telling stories about grace and failure and hope and all the strange scattered moments where God seems to leave his fingerprints. And yes, I do it for myself, but that's not the whole reason. Because every time I sit down at this microphone, there's somebody on the other side of it. I don't know who, I don't know where. I don't know if you're listening in your car, walking around your neighborhood, or sitting alone in your kitchen, lying awake at two in the morning or killing time at the doctor's office waiting. I don't know if fifty people will hear this one episode or five hundred. It's really a crapshoot. So if scattered moments needed a dedication, I think it probably would go something like this. Scattered Moments is dedicated to a great host of people. Without them, this podcast wouldn't be worth the effort. Many of them you know. It's dedicated to the people whose lives are falling apart at the seams. It's dedicated to the preachers and the pushers, the people who have it all together and the people who have never had anything together. It's for the teachers who make thirty thousand dollars a year and change the world and the celebrities who make twenty million dollars a year and don't change much. It's for the pastor who works as a janitor twenty hours a week so he can pastor forty hours a week. It's dedicated to the people who feel like they'll never measure up and those who feel like they don't need anybody's help. It's dedicated to the failures, the addicts, the honor students, the underachievers, the manic depressives, and their therapists. It's for the women who have endured unspeakable abuse and rose from the ashes, and the people whose bodies have been battered by cancer, AIDS, leukemia, heart disease, and a thousand other things they never asked for. It's for the dreamers who have lost touch with reality and for the practical who haven't dreamed in years. It's for those who have walked with God for fifty years as well as the ones who haven't taken the first step toward him. I'd say it's for the holy and the humiliated, the righteous and the restless, the vain and the virtuous. I suppose if you're breathing, it's for you. I know what you're thinking and you're right. This podcast isn't very discriminating, it's unfocused, far reaching, and almost embarrassingly inclusive. But if you're baffled by my list, you should see God's. Because if you've ever been picked last at a ball game, passed over for a promotion, left out, overlooked, forgotten, dismissed, or rejected, you're probably pretty thankful for a God who doesn't build his kingdom the way we build our guest lists. You thank God for his list. Hey, I'm even on it. So that's why I come upstairs around 8 p.m. every night. That's why I turn on the microphone. That's why I keep making these little episodes. I don't know who's gonna listen. I don't know what you'll be carrying when you do, but perhaps something I say will remind you that God has not misplaced your name. Maybe you'll laugh, maybe you'll think, maybe you'll pray, maybe you'll hear some old story you've never heard before, maybe a psalm you've read a hundred times will sound different tomorrow morning, or maybe for ten minutes you'll simply feel less alone. And that's enough for me. So tomorrow night, somewhere around eight o'clock, I'll probably climb these stairs again. I'll turn on the microphone, I'll find another scattered moment, and I'll send it out into the darkness for whoever happens to be listening. Until then, take heart. Notice the scattered moments, and share the grace.