This broke me today

For my people are determined to desert me.

They call me the Most High,

but they don’t truly honor me. “Oh, how can I give you up, Israel?

How can I let you go?

How can I destroy you like Admah

or demolish you like Zeboiim?

My heart is torn within me,

and my compassion overflows. No, I will not unleash my fierce anger.

I will not completely destroy Israel,

for I am God and not a mere mortal.

I am the Holy One living among you,

and I will not come to destroy.

(Hosea 11:7-9 NLT)

my current favorite song

These bones, my frame, won't hold in place
They'd leave and part ways
If I was without you

This earth, my home, would be alone
There'd be no moon to share the galaxy
If it was without you

My God. I am not, but you are.

What was it like when you prayed
Did the rivers calm when the raging seas obeyed?

What was it like when you slept
Did the rocks come close and the trees lean in
And did the air rejoice just to be your breath?

My God. I am not, but you are.

When your servant tried to ask your name
But a million words could not contain
And the meaning could not be expressed
For the weight would be too much to take

So you cradled him, like you cradle me and whispered:

"I am"

Oh My God! I am not, but you are.

My Epic - Untitled

A thought.

To delight in God is simply what it means to be fully human.

my heart...

...is so hard and dark right now. I feel it. The Spirit is bringing me on a journey to seeing the desires of my flesh as they really are. I am afraid of myself. My heart sits around creating idols which I worship. Now that I know He is inviting me to walk with him into abundant life. But part of me keeps wanting to push Him away. God, only by the cross of your Son do I have any hope. Praise YHWH!

Pray for me. I have been feeding the flesh and am starved for the bread of life. I want to sow to the Spirit but something keeps holding me back.

I took a little trip to India.

Well, where to start. I am going to try to cover all 6 weeks.

My Team
There was originally 8 of us from Biola who were on the team. 3 guys and 5 girls. But in the month before the trip one of our guys had to drop out because he felt God leading him elsewhere. So our team was down to 7, but then we got connected to a girl from North Carolina that was planning on going to India at the same time, through the same organization, but alone. We ended up inviting her to join our team. So we had 8 again but it was strange to be on a team with a 3 to 1 girl to guy ratio. By the end of the trip I was more sick of the people on my team than I was of India but that was because we spent every waking moment together for 6 weeks. I think learning to live with the same group of people (mostly girls) for a long period of time was one of the most difficult parts of the trip, but it showed me a huge area in which I need to grow that I didn't fully recognize before.

Journey to India

I had to take a total of 4 flights in order to get to our first ministry location in India. The first flight was from Phoenix to Los Angeles where I had to wait at the LA airport all morning for my next flight and for my team. Our flight was in the afternoon and my team (minus 1) met up at LAX around noon. We boarded a flight from LA to London. This was about a 10 hour flight but somehow we got into London an hour and a half late. This was a problem because we originally had only 2 hours between our connecting flight and so we go into London 30 minutes before our next international flight. We also were suppose to meet up with our final team member (the one from North Carolina) before we got on our flight to London. Well we did our best but we ended up missing the next flight, which was to Mumbai, India. Our other team member got off the flight before it took off because she found out that we didn't make it. However we didn't end up finally meeting up with her until just before our rescheduled flight to Mumbai. This flight was about 10 hours later than the one we missed. My team decided that since we were "stuck" in London we might as well head into the city. So we got train tickets and took the subway into downtown London. We walked around for a few hours and saw some of the famous sights such as Big Ben. We were pretty tired from our 10 hour flight already at this point so we didn't spend as much time in the city as we could have. When we got back to the airport we still had a few hours before our flight so we ended up eating food in the airport and some of us (including me) slept on the floor. Well we eventually got on our flight and met up with our 8th team member (none of us had ever seen her before this point) and spent another 10 hours in an airplane going to Mumbai. We landed in Mumbai and didn't really know what to do next. We had to take another flight to Nagpur, India (in the center of the country). The problem was that we were now in India where English is only a second or third language for everyone. We somehow found out that there was another part of the airport that was for domestic flights but the terminals were a few miles away. We were told we could rent a taxi (apparently there was a free shuttle that we could have taken and did not know about until our trip back home). The taxi between airports turned into one of the biggest nightmares of the trip. The taxis were small and we had all our luggage so we had to take 3 to transport all 8 of us. The problem was that we could not communicate well with the taxi drivers because they knew very little English. All 3 taxis ran into some problems, mine ended up in the wrong terminal and so I had to take another taxi and that taxi driver ripped me off for money because I didn't understand the currency in India yet. Then we had about a 5 hour layover in the domestic airport. We were all exhausted but we made it on to our last flight. This flight was suppose to be about an hour and 15 mins. However when we were scheduled to take off the pilot announced that the airport was experiencing delays and we could not take off, we would have to wait. Luckily this plane had TVs so we watched this Indian comedy that had subtitles. When we were finally allowed to take off we taxied to the runway but once we got there the pilot announced that there was a technical problem with the plane and it was not safe to take off. So we had to taxi back to the terminal and get the plane repaired. Our movie had finished and we got to watch it a second time. After the plane got repaired the pilot announced that the plane was fixed but we had to wait for refueling. So we waited some more. We finally did get to take off about 2 hours or more later than was scheduled. We got to Nagpur much later than we told our hosts but they waited for us nonetheless. They were their with traditional Indian flower leis to give us when we arrived. They packed us and our luggage into a large van and took us to our first location, our organizations main location which was a bible seminary. We pretty much got our luggage to our rooms and went right to sleep because we had gone 2-3 days without much real sleep. We were relieved to finally be at our destination after all the hang-ups of our travel.

The First Week

The adjustments began. Something we began to notice the first few days was that one of our major expectations was not there. We were not busy all the time. I was expecting this trip to be 5 weeks of non-stop busyness like other short(shorter) term trips I had been on to other countries. But Eastern/Indian culture has many differences from the West. One of those being their treatment of guests. We were guests in India. Something we didn't understand until near the end of our trip was the Indians never want to put ANY burden on their guests, that means that they also didn't want us to work very hard. However we learned to work with this and still had some awesome opportunity to serve. But overall the trip did feel much slower and less packed than we expected it to be, though based on how tired we all were by the last week we apparently did more than we thought. That first week we had a great time seeing the seminary campus and meeting students and professors. We would attend their campus chapel service every morning. We even once sat in on a seminary class and talked to the students afterwards. They had a descent sized library and almost every day we would spend our morning and afternoon there helping out with whatever they need (replacing books, etc.). Before dinner we would spend time at the campus Mercy Home. This was a home for children who were either orphans or had parents but their parents could not afford to care for their needs. We had happened to come on a week when all the Mercy Home children who had parents or relatives were off visited them. However there were still a group of about 10-15 girls there and a boy, the son of the warden of the home. This boy, named Jeffin, loved my phone which I was using as my camera with the phone functions turn off. He took a a lot of my pictures on my phone from the first week in India. Every friday night the whole seminary campus fasts and has a special night chapel. At that chapel John, the other guy on our team, was asked to preach. Apparently they liked it because then they asked both John and I to preach on Sunday. I preached at the campus church service on Sunday morning and John went to a small church in the nearby city to preach. It was quite an experience to give my first real sermon to a group of Bible students with a Hindi translator. But I did get to dress like an Indian preacher! A few days before that we got to go into the city and go shopping. All the girls got some traditional Indian female clothing (sarees and salvars) and John and I got Kurtas which are the long shirts that Indians wear and especially Indian preachers tend to wear white ones, which is what I got. I wore this on Sunday morning and every Sunday morning after while in India. After a week, when we were finally starting to get used to living on the campus we packed up everything and got ready to leave for a new destination. We went to the train station and had our first encounter with the crowdedness and dirtiness of India. This time we had an Indian man from the organization who traveled with us. He spoke and understood in English quite well because he had spent 11 years in America. We got on our first train. This train, unlike all the others we would take while in India, was an experience in the "Real" India. This was a bed train. Because the trip was 16 hours long and we began at night it was expected that we sleep. The beds we sat/slept on were stacked 3 high. There were no sheets or pillows just this bed that smelled, was sticky, and obviously had not been cleaned in some time. The train was packed with people and not all of them had tickets, they simply were along for the ride. There was only enough tickets for all the seats/beds so many people would share beds because the train car was overfilled. I ended up talking to this Indian man who was my age for like an hour or more. It was a difficult conversation because he knew very little english but we still managed with patience to get to know each other. He ended up sleeping in my bed with me. Like I said, there was not enough beds for everyone. The other thing about this train was that it did not have A/C and so once that second half of the trip came and the sun came into view it got very hot, and there wasn't much we go do. We just learned to cope with sweating in this nasty, smelly, and hot train. The train was going to New Dehli and it got in late. We had to catch a train from New Delhi to Haldwani which was our next home in India. At the New Dehli train station we met up with the warden of the mercy home at the campus we were heading to. It was a relief to have more than one man with us who was from our organization and knew English. It was difficult with only one with us because if he had to leave to check on something or find something out for us, we were left alone surrounded by crowds of Indian people who we could not communicate with if something happened. Plus it was just hard to be the only white people in a sea of only one race. We had to take taxis between train stations but we they were bigger than the ones in Mumbai and so we only had to take two and we had an Indian native in each taxi with us to tell the driver where to go. We made it to the station for our next train just in time to get on train. This train just had seats and was air conditioned. It was a much more "normal" train experience for us. This train ride was about 6 hours and most of us slept half the way because we were tired from the previous 16 hour hot train adventure. We got into Haldwani that night. This is a city in northern India near the western border of Nepal. We would spend the next 3 weeks at a bible school campus owned by our organization. The owner of this campus picked us up at the train station and we were amazed when we got to the campus. The whole campus was housed in one building. But it was one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen. The owner named the building the “Dream Palace” and it definitely looked kinda like a palace.

The Second Week

The seminary campus we stayed at during the first week had air conditioning in the rooms. It was a nice escape from the heat of Indian summer, but this second place that we stayed at did not have any A/C. We had to adjust to this and although there were many fans we could use, it was especially hard to sleep because we were not used to sleeping in very hot rooms. After the first week we got used to it, it was only difficult once we adjusted when the power went out. The electricity in India goes out at least once a day for a wide range of time periods. One night the power was out for most of the night and most of the campus put mattresses on the roof at we slept up there because it was much cooler up there without our fans running in the bedrooms.

We woke up our first morning in Haldwani to learn that a VBS had begun at the campus we were staying at. All the children from the Mercy Home as well as many children from the surrounding areas were attending. They had anywhere between 50 and 80 children depending on the day. We didn't know that we would be there during VBS but we quickly scrambled to come up with ideas to help out. We thought of some songs with hand/body motions to teach to the kids (they called them "action songs"). We made up some short skits to tell some bible stories. So this first week was mostly adjusting to living in Haldwani, helping out with the VBS, and getting to know the Mercy Home children by playing with them all afternoon. We really felt the language barrier when we got to Haldwani. At the seminary, most of the Indians we met know English well enough to be understood but in Haldwani the children didn't really know English and even the adults who knew English were difficult to understand. We were both speaking the same language but our communication with everyone in Haldwani was full of misunderstandings and confusion. It was amazing to play for hours with the children even though we could not communicate with words, but it was also really amazing to see how well we connected with the them even though we never really spoke. The children did begin to teach us some Hindi words and we taught them a few english words. I remember that I learned the word for water (pani) early on and then the kids taught me to count to 10 in Hindi. In the afternoons when we would play with the kids we taught them games like red-light/green-light and had fun putting them on our shoulders, etc. That Sunday we attended the Church meeting that was held in the building we were staying at. It was a Pentecostal influenced service and so it took about 3 hours. John preached during the service, with translation of course.

The Third Week

*WARNING this part is slightly graphic

VBS continued through the beginning of the next week, and the second to last day of VBS is when I started to get sick. I have no idea what got me sick but it changed the whole trip for me. That afternoon I began to notice that I felt like I had a slight fever. I spent some time laying down but the fever started to get worse, I heard that one of the girls on my team was sick and throwing up and I assumed I might have gotten whatever she had but I didn't feel nauseous. Then I was sitting with some teammates I started to feel nauseous all of a sudden and I ran to the bathroom to begin the never ending vomiting cycle I experienced that night. That night I puked 12 times, It was quite the experience. I found that if I would lie facing up on my back I would just feel very nauseous but I would not throw up but if I sat up or rolled onto my side it would make me puke. So all night i didn't sleep and went through the cycle of lying on my back till i could not stand feeling nauseous anymore so I would move so that I could puke and get a few minutes of relief even though puking became very painful after my stomach was completely empty. Relief finally came about 4 A.M. when on a whim I decided to drink a glass of Pepsi. As soon as I did this much of my nausea when away and I could be in any position and not puke. I did not throw up once after that glass. I still had a strong fever and still felt a little nauseous if I walked around. But I finally got get a little bit of sleep. The next morning I had some re-hydration drinks that helped and I took some fever medicine which broke my fever. I spend the next couple days mostly in bed resting trying to recover but for the rest of the trip, I still dealt with nausea. It would come on at random times or would show up to make my normal car sickness much worse. It very slowly started to become less frequent. What also happened was that I completely lost my appetite. It wasn't until after I was back in the U.S. for a week that I got it back. It made it the rest of the trip difficult because I couldn't each much (though they fed us well and with amazing food) so I felt really weak. However I was feeling much better by that Saturday so I was asked to preach at a small village church on Sunday. We went to this small Methodist church in the middle of this village. The girls sang some songs and I preached. And that was the end of the third week.

The Forth Week

Starting the next week we began to teach and visit the local location of the Sisters of Charity (the order of Mother Teresa). We split up into groups of 2 and one group each day would stay back at the campus to teach the 1 year program beginning bible students while the rest of the group would go visit the Sisters of Charity. We split up the book of John and each group covered a few chapters in it with the students in three sessions (each session was one hour). I taught on the second day. At the Sisters of Charity we spent time talking to people who lived in the leaper colony that the Sisters ran. All of these people had leprosy at one point and have now been cured but because the deformities are not fixable, they have been cast of out society and this is why they have to live in these colonies. We got to meet and chat with these people. It was an eye-opening experience to say the least. Later in the week we got to visit a home the Sisters also ran that was for mentally ill men. We bought a beach ball and they thought it was the funnest thing that could exist on this earth. Then at lunch time we would feed them because many of them could not even hold a spoon to feed themselves. I fed this little boy a few times who did not have proper control over his arms or legs. On Saturday we went to a city up in the mountains above Haldwani called Nanital. This was a city around a large lake and was very much catered toward tourists. The girls shopped all day and I got annoyed because I hate shopping. But it was sweet to see this city, the temperature was cool up there and it was refreshing. We also got to take boats out onto the lake. That Sunday I was asked to preach again because John was going to go to a tiny village church to preach but the rest of us were going to a large methodist church in the city. I preached in front of a church of over 100 people and definitely felt very nervous but it was fun.

The Fifth Week

On Monday the girls and John went back to Nanital to do some more shopping but I decided to stay back and teach the bible students some more. I taught all three sessions by myself Monday and then Tuesday I taught all three but John helped me with the first one before getting sick himself. The first day I taught an overview of the whole Old Testament, then on Tuesday we taught the students about how to interpret the bible and gave them basic tools how to do this. Then came our last couple days in Haldwani in which we simply had fun with the staff and children with a bitter-sweet attitude knowing we would be leaving soon. The last day we had a special afternoon farewell chapel and all the Mercy Home children were crying, we saw how strongly we had connected with these kids. That night we had a final meal in Haldwani and got to serve food to all the children and eat with them. That night I had the biggest meal I had had since I got sick, it was garlic chicken curry and rice and it was delicious. We packed up our stuff and headed to the train station. Our host and the owner of the Haldwani campus, David, came with us on our journey back to Nagpur. We took an overnight A/C train to New Dehli and arrived in the early morning. From there we got into a large rented van and drove the 4 hours to Agra which is where the Taj Mahal is located. We spent the afternoon at the Taj Mahal. It was surreal to see this world famous building in front of us. After we were done we drove back to New Dehli where we got some hotel rooms. The next day we took a car tour of some parts of Dehli, we visit many of the famous landmarks in the capital of India. That night we took our final train ride back to Nagpur. This was about 14 hours long but we had air conditioning so it was luxurious to us.

Back in Nagpur we met with some other Americans who had arrived in Nagpur while we were in Haldwani. One was a lady who I believe was a school teacher in the States and had come to teach English at the Seminary. She ended up leaving to another part of India soon after we arrived. The other Americans was a lady and three girls who were from Chicago and attended the church of the leader of the organization (our organization's main office was in Chicago). They had come to see the ministry and some of them had Indian backgrounds. It was refreshing to meet and talk to some Americans other than my team for the first time in a 5 weeks. On Sunday neither John nor I preached for once but we got to attend a local church in Nagpur and our host who had traveled with us (David) preached. We got to share a little about our trip with that church's congregation.

The Final Week

The first half of this week we were in Nagpur and then the second half was our trip back to America. The last few days were difficult because we were all so worn out and wanting to go home. Knowing that we would be back to the comforts of home in a few days made it difficult to do anything but daydream. We did some more serving in the campus library and spent some time at the Mercy Home. Our first time in Nagpur most of the children were gone but when we got back they were all there so we got to meet some new kids. They had a farewell chapel for us as well on our last day and we got to meet with a man from our organization who did some debrief with us. We were the first team over the size of 4 members to visit this organization so they wanted feedback from us on how to better accommodate future teams. Finally we went to the airport and boarded our first flight on our journey home. On the way home we had little hang-ups with flights and getting to flights. It was a great feeling to arrive at customs in LAX knowing that we were finally on American soil. But at least for me I immediately began to miss India. It had been home for so long. Haldwani especially felt like home after spending 3 weeks there. I got on my flight later on Friday to Phoenix and finally got home that night. It was strange to experience culture-shock when I got to my home city and my house. But I was glad to be back in an air-conditioned room with consistent electricity.

I hope I didn't leave out anything important but this is my trip in the smallest nutshell I can make it.

Self-Denial?

Back in April I wrote about self-denial and how following God is not about fulfillment and such. Well I am beginning to rethink my thinking. While I still actually agree with what I said in April I think I am missing a piece of the puzzle. While there is truth to the fact that Jesus is the one that really matters, I forgot that I DO matter BECAUSE Jesus matters. I am still processing this, Jesus is calling me not just to deny OLD self but to also put on the NEW self and enter into a redeemed sense of fulfillment, both in this life and the next.

What if the truest form of MY fulfillment is in the pursuit of knowing YHWH?

Short summary of my recent thoughts

One must enter into the depths of one's sin, by the Spirit, and with a firm grasp on the Gospel before one can be truly transformed with a renewed mind. For Christ did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. We need Romans 1-11 to get to Romans 12.

Christianity is about Fulfillment, Happiness, and Purpose!

Wrong. I am done buying into that lie. It makes Christianity into a religion that serves self. It has lead me down a path toward flirting with rejecting God and considering abandoning my faith. Jesus said following him was about taking up a cross (I don't think any of us in the 21st century really even know what that means). It was was about death to self. The lie that following Jesus brings happiness, fulfillment, and purpose is a dangerous fusion between the promises of God and the promises of this world. There is a great hope and peace in following Jesus. But that hope is there to give Christians courage because the narrow road to life is hard. It is a full of danger, uncertainty, struggle, and hardship. Dying to oneself is one of the most difficult jobs for a human being corrupted by sinful desires. Because of sin, the image-bearers of God have become haters of God and lovers of self. I love myself, there is no other explanation why I still fall into sin, why I do not follow God perfectly. The journey of the Christian life is the journey away from self and towards God. Their is no higher calling and truthfully it is an impossible calling (from a human standpoint). No man can completely die to self and follow God. But herein lies one of the many reasons that God is worthy of giving up of myself. God made is possible through his grace for human beings to die to themselves and follow him. He is the power behind my death. He is the one who gives me the strength to die. I need to die, but on my own I would try to preserve my own life and therefore would perish. I will follow Jesus not because I want fulfillment, but because Jesus said "whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 16:25 ESV).


I love myself; Jesus tells me I have to give up myself. The one I love most dearly is me; Jesus wants to replace me as this one that I love most dearly. This means seeking MY fulfillment, MY happiness, MY purpose just plain sounds silly, I am not the one that matters.

Parables and Stories

Something I think that Christians have lost is the power of story in our presentations of God to the world. May I remind you that the silly prophet named Jesus who walked around in Roman-occupied Israel spent most of time telling stories. I think the world is fed up with clever arguments for the truth of the "Good News" that Christians are preaching. There is something about being human and wrestling with truth that makes stories able to communicate truth in the best way that words can. The collection of writings that we have put together today and called the "Bible" (what a creative name) is mostly a collection of stories. In my own personal journey of seeking to find the truths of this world, I initially wanted concrete answers. I wanted to know the facts and everything else was a waste of time. But what I have been realizing is that truth can only be most clearly communicated in the context of a narrative. Embodied truth is far more powerful than disembodied truth.

I am pondering what it would be like if a Church would stop giving an instructive sermon one Sunday and instead told a Parable about the Christian life that communicated the same instructive truth through the different medium. I know that in our "post-modern" way of thinking we have twisted stories so that they no longer have real meaning. I want to avoid that and I feel this is the problem with my idea. I am not sure how one can present and story and insure that the audience does not take the story to mean something it doesn't. But then again, look at the parables of Jesus and how often they are over-analyzed by Christian preachers. I am sure God knew that his stories told through his son would be abused but he still chose to communicate truth through parables.

As an example of the power of story over argument and teaching, I am going to link you to a blog post by Michael Patton. He writes for a Christian theology blog called "Parchment and Pen". I want you to read his blog post about the Christian doctrine of Eternal Security and notice as you read that, regardless of whether you agree with him or not, his short parable he tells is the most powerful argument in his favor. It communicates what he is saying more powerfully than all his words before and after the story. You might argue for a middle ground here, that the words support the story and give the reader the ability to correctly interpret the story. I am fine with that. That might actually be the answer to the "post-modern dilemma" that comes with stories. I can think of a situation where Jesus takes his disciples aside and explains a parable to them so that they may more clearly understand the meaning (Matthew 13:36-43). My problem is that the Church tends to do more explaining of the story than actually story telling.

I want to be a Child again.

I want to be a Child again. Everything I expirence has a tendency to become mundane and normal. The things that used to be new and exciting lose their luster as time passes. I hate how this translates into my expirence of God. How foolish am I to let him become mundane. To let him becoming boring. The beautiful and mysterious being that bought my heart is crying out so that I might know him more. I am praying that God would break me again so that I can see my need for the one who truly loves my soul.

India and my life as it is now

This summer I have the opportunity to travel to India to support a local Christian ministry there. I will be there for over a month from the middle of June until late July. One of my goals while there is to do a lot of writing about the expirence. I hope that I can figure out how to translate some of my thoughts over here. I have been living selfishly and in apathy these past few months and I am tired of all of it. I hope to simply begin writing more on here as well in the months leading up my trip this summer. A friend texted me something today that reminded me why my life feels like it is in shambles right now emotionally and otherwise. I have my Spring Break next week and I will be back home for a week and its going to be a great time to collect myself and make some serious changes.

my adventure

I am writing this post more for myself than anyone. To remind myself of where I am and where I am going.

I have been reading Donald Miller's latest book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and in it he talks about story. Specifically what it looks like to approach how we live as if telling a story to the world. My story is the journey of telling a story. I want to tell the world of God's story. The story of the creator who made this world good and then took responsibility when his prize creation (us) broke what was good. The story of this loving God who is weaving a story of redemption for humanity and for all of creation. I am on an adventure to better understand and articulate this story. I plan on pursuing this goal through my intellectual study and through the way I live as a result of what I know. As I write this I am a new student of the Bible, the written record of God's story. I am now ready to forsake myself in order to better know this written record and to better obey it. I believe at the core of who I am that this story is the intended climax of all our stories, all the stories that man has been telling since of the dawn of the human race.

You are here

This is a link to a video I saw awhile back that I keep going back to watch from time to time. It is a great reminder of redemptive history and what it means for Christians today

http://www.vimeo.com/4316077

where is home?

I grew up in the same city and the same house from birth until at 18 when I went off to college. It is thanksgiving week so I have gone back to my old city, my old house to spend time with my family over the holiday. It is always such a strange experience to get settled in a place and then try to return to the place you once called home. It is a partial identity crisis I think. So much of our identity tends to get wrapped up in where we live, who we live with. A change in these parameters of living is strange and hard to deal with. I question who I am a little bit. I question what it will be like after finishing college to be living completely on my own, maybe even being responsible for taking care of a wife. But this is an identity crisis that I cherish. It makes me step back and think about who I really am. It draws me closer to my father who is the king of the universe and has given me a new identity, a new home. This is a home in which I have actually never been to, but yet a home I long for.

Listen, you who seek wisdom...

All over scripture is the statement that "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom". I have spent the last week pondering what it means to fear God, asking God to show me what it is like to fear him. I still feel like I do not fully understand what this all entails but I want to point out a few things that I have come to understand. God is a King. Not just a King, but the King of all kings and rulers, human authorities, spiritual authorities. God's title alone should cause us as human beings to tremble. We are under his power, everything that He wills happens. Our lives seem to live sometimes under the illusion that we are our own masters and our destiny, at least in this life, is in our own hands. What a lie. We can make all the plans, we can store up all the riches, we can make choices about what we do with our time, but in the end these are subject to the will of God. James, in his letter, speaks by the Spirit of God saying: "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil" (James 4:14-16).

I want to simply continue by speaking to you, reader. And when I say you this not just to you the reader but this is what I am speaking to myself.
You are a mist.
You are a flower in the huge field of God.
Your beauty fades.
Your material existence like the wind, there one day, gone the next.
You have no right to boast in your self-determination.
You belong to the King of Kings.
He fashioned you with his hands.
He is your God.
He bought you when you were running from him.
He bought you with his own blood.
The blood of God himself spilled onto the dirt below a tree.
You are now his.
He is the overseer.
He is the Shepard of your restless soul.
Your soul will always be broken apart from him.
You are dependent on him for life itself.
Fear him.
Tremble.
He is God.

And you will know wisdom,
faith,
righteousness,
holiness,
godliness.

A story about slaves and masters

Slave. This is not a name that most would take kindly to. This word brings to mind many things in the history of humanity. For Americans it reminds them of the days of the slave trade, where a country founded on the inalienable rights of a human being, showed great hypocrisy and racism. It might make you think about the history of the ancient world and how almost every major kingdom that ever existed, from Babylon to Rome, was partially built on the backs of those in involuntarily servitude. A Jew or a Christian, who knows about the history of Israel, may hear the word slave and think about how the descendants of Abraham were enslaved in Egypt and were delivered miraculously by God.

But I want to take you back to another event in history. I want to talk about the former and then the current human condition and what it means for our definition of slavery. Millennias ago there was a husband and wife that lived in nothing short of paradise. They were healthy and they knew no pain nor shame. This couple was unique because they were the only human beings who were not born into slavery. What set them apart was that they actually knew the creator of the universe. They knew God. But although they had this privileged birth right, an embodiment of evil coaxed them into breaking the one rule the creator, and lover, of their souls had set up for them. The beloved had rebelled against the lover. This choice was the selling of mankind into slavery. This is a slavery that is not so much different than the slavery of human being owning another human being. It created in mankind a rebellious nature that is always seeking to own and effectually controlled every man and woman. Everything that was beautiful and good in creation became perverted and controlled by the lusts of man's new owner. Men now seek after things to please their new master. They seek after riches, sensual pleasures, euphoria, dominance over fellow man (hence the man owning man slavery I started out talking about), and many other lusts. So quick and complete was the rebellious nature's control that the world became an evil place as soon as the once free couple was thrown out of the paradise they were born into.

I feel like I need to clarify something and reword some of this. Mankind was never meant to be completely free and independent. Dependency is part of human nature. Man is dependent on this rebellious nature, man needs a master, its simply how we are programmed. I want to point out the reality is that the human race simply traded masters. The original master of mankind was also the lover of mankind. One who knew them intimately, better than they knew themselves, and met their every need. This lover was nothing short of God himself. Now the rebellious nature became the new master when mankind rebelled against their master and lover. Under this new master, man is a broken creature, the new master is so concerned with meeting perverse lustful wants that many of the needs of a man are left unmet. Indeed, this new master does not even know how to meet the needs of man. Man experiences hopeless, shame, fear, loss, hurt, and loneliness, just to name a few. Amidst all the pains that broken man experiences, a longing for the real master may be found deep in his soul. A wall has been built by the new master so that fellowship between the lover and the beloved is no longer possible. I believe the lover feels pain even greater because his beloved has forsaken him.

However, amidst this story of heartbreak is the story of the lover, creator God, finding a way to be reunited with his children that are rebelling. He found the few men who lived on the earth who began to recognize the longing in their souls for their true master and sought him. He came to these men and set in motion events that would begin to put holes in the wall that man, alongside his new master, had built. He started by creating a nation of people that he would call his own, a people he would care for as much as they would let him, a nation that would proclaim the nature of the true master. Well to cut to the chase, for the most part they failed. God did everything he could to bring this rebellious nation into relationship with him but they continually were forsaking their lover.

Then at a crucial point in human history, God did the unthinkable. He became a man. He was born from a human woman and walked on the earth and grew up like any other man. Except he was God, he was perfect and he lived a perfect life while proclaiming something that sounded alien to human ears, a new world. This new world he called the Kingdom of God, this was a world where man could finally know God again as their master and God could finally reach out to enslaved man. Then after all this talk about the new world, some men got together and put God to death. But the ironic thing about this murder was that this was God's plan all along. He did this so that he could suffer for the evil man had done and smash down the wall that separated man from God. God had taken responsibility for what had happened to man and made a way for God to be the loving master of man that he was in the beginning.

Here is where our story intersects with today. Today Jesus has already be killed on the cross and been risen from the grave. He has smashed down the wall between man and God, between lover and beloved, and inaugurated the Kingdom of God-the new world. But a specific part of this story is still up to each man. A man must choose to partake in this reality of the new world. He (or she) must embrace Jesus as being in very nature God and being the one who is able to take down the wall between man and God. And this very day we stand at a point in time where this new world is not fully here. Even if man embraces the call of Jesus he still has his rebellious nature in him fighting for control. A battle is now taking place, the foe has been defeated with the destruction of the wall but he is always trying to find new ways to be master again. The man who has embraced Jesus, believes in him, trusts in him still must fight his old master, though not alone. God has sent a helper into the battleground of man's heart. The Bible calls this the Holy Spirit. However, all though the battle rages on, the outcome is already known. God will finally win, he will destroy the rebellious nature of mankind at a point in future history and will fully bring into reality that Kingdom of God. Man is simply called, at this stage in history, to resist the old master, to continually seek to make up for lost time with his lover and know him, really know him. Where man was once stuck in slavery to the rebellious nature that had taken over, Man can become a slave to righteousness, a slave to trying to know God more and more every day, a person who is trying to be overcome by the callings of God. This is a new person who has been spiritually reborn and is dependent on God again. This my friends is not a slavery to fear, its a slavery where you are not just a slave, or a servant, but you are also friend and the beloved. Jesus is your groom and you are his bride and you along with your lover are longing for the wedding feast that will take place at the end of time.


"For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved" (2 Peter 2:19b ESV)

Characters and Story

It has been quite a while since I have written anything for this blog. For some reason my love for writing has dwindled in the last year or so. I hope this is not a permanent thing. But anyhow, I felt the urge to write something today.

I was pondering something when I woke up this morning and I want to get it out in writing. I have been quite addicted to this television comedy, 30 Rock. I had only seen one episode before this month but now I have watched the first 3 season of it. I was contemplating what about that show has drawn me in over the past month. The show has won multiple Emmy awards and is critically acclaimed for its brilliant writing. Though the writing is definitely above par and it is quite funny, I do not think that is the reason I was so taken by the show. It was the characters. I had fallen in love with the characters on the show. I connected with them. I wanted to hear more about their lives, their stories, their backgrounds, their dreams, and their hopes. They are not even real people, but I was drawn into their lives. I began to draw a possibly cliché sounding, sermon-like parallel between this and the biblical narrative, though this parallel hit me deep within my soul. Why have I not fallen in love with the Bible more? The Bible is a story about a God! The greatest character in any story ever told since the foundations of the earth. The Story of the Triune God should be the narrative that draws me in even more. One of the most valuable things I have learned at Biola so far is how to read the bible and see God on every page, whether he is mentioned by name or not. The Old Testament is not just a story about Israel's history, it is so much more than that, God's life and story is weaved throughout the history of this group of people. Added to that, every book in the Old Testament points ahead to the life of the not yet born Jesus. Then comes the newer revelation from God, the New Testament. Here God himself becomes man. God reveals himself to be even more relational. Through the God-man Jesus, we can relate to God even more personal, God and I can relate even in our struggles! I feel like growing up in the Church and in Sunday School, I have grown far to used to the Biblical stories, I have not been allowing myself to read the Bible with a fresh desire to hear about God's story-To connect my own story to the story of Yahweh.

still stuck

My summer is more than half-way over and I still feel like I am stuck in the same rut I have been in for far too long. I feel like am stagnant, which in reality means I am going backwards in my growth-as a human, as a man, as a new adult, as a servant of the king. I am also made aware of my apathy and my pervasive laziness. I am a lazy person, this is something I have to fight intensely. I am constantly brought to this realization and though I desire so strongly to change in these moments, it does not take me long before I fall back into old habits and desires that have kept me stagnant so long. I have all these passions within me but when it is time to act on them I fall back into fear or apathy. Fear of what it might mean to act on them. Fear of losing that which makes me comfortable. Unable to see the joys that are not instant gratification but, through my relentless pursuit of them, bring a fullness of joy. There are so many things that bring true joy: Growing in the knowledge of Yahweh more and more every day through Jesus; Building honest, open, authentic relationships with other broken human beings like myself; learning to care more for others than I do for myself. I pray that God would kill my fear, my laziness, my apathy and convict my heart about these things, not just daily, but hourly.

late night stress

Here I am. It's 5 am and I can't sleep, so I am going to just write. I have a few more things to do in the next 2 days but other than that I am done with my first year of College. Even though I am practically done I am stressed out. Summer looms like a giant tree above me. I need to find job and figure what I am going to do with myself besides that. I do not want to leave Biola but at the same time I know I need to. I need a change of pace for a bit. I need to figure myself out. I still feel like a child in so many ways. My passions continue to lie dormant for the most part. I hate this feeling of being unable to be who I want to become. I still feel daily enslaved to the cheap pleasures that surround me. I am still so very selfish and a master of taking the easy way out of everything. This is hurting my schooling and learning and my integrity. I simply want to pursue the heart of God but this is only part of who I am. The scared human nature within me still rules most of my life. My faith is still so weak. I desire to trust my God more so that he can do his work in me. I am slothful in my zeal and not fervent in spirit (Romans 12:11). A friend of mine likes to talk about consistency in the Christian life and I feel like there is so little consistency in my life. I write this now and feel passionate about it but when I wake up in the morning my flesh will take over yet again and nothing will change. It depresses me how weak I am. Pray for me that Christ's power comes to rescue me in my weakness. Pray that Yahweh will be who I turn to in my difficulty.

A professor of mine once described the difference between a wise man and a foolish man:

A Foolish Man is one who is "pursuing strategies for living that bring asense of control (over vulnerablility) and satisfaction (over thristiness) in the midst of the uncertainity and difficulty of life"

A Wise Man is someone who is "pursuing knowledge of the Holy One that leads to absolute confidence in his person/works even in the midst of the uncertainty and difficulty"

I see myself in that Foolish man.

Uniqueness of the Bible's Gospel

I began reading Karl Barth's The Epistle to the Romans tonight and came across a section of note.

"The Gospel is not a religious message to inform mankind of their divinity or to tell them how they may become divine. The Gospel proclaims a God utterly distinct from men. Salvation comes to them from Him, because they are, as men, incapable of knowing Him, and because they have no right to claim anything from Him. The Gospel is not one thing in the midst of other things, to be directly apprehended and comprehended. The Gospel is the Word of the Primal Origin of all things, the Word which, since it is ever new, must ever be received with renewed fear and trembling. The Gospel is therefore not an event, nor an experience, nor an emotion-however delicate! Rather it is the clear and objective perception of what eye hath not seen nor ear heard. Moreover, what it demands of men is more than notice, or understanding, or sympathy. It demands participation, comprehension, co-operation; for it is a communication which presumes faith in the living God, and which creates that which it presumes" (28).

Stream of consciousness

The world crumbles,

Yes
there is Good,

hiding in many shadows,

Yahweh.

King.

Love.

Why?

Creation,
I watch you moan,

and I join in.

I am finally letting myself feel
again.

Yes,

Hope
is
real,

I challenge
all
your
religions
you have made,

Human,

you scrabble to please God,

you seek to be near to him,

you know the only hope must be in God,

yet all your rituals
give you temporary feelings that
only lead to despair,
or a false hope,

narrow is the pathway to life,
and to the giver of life,

and few find it,

give up your religion,
give up your self confidence,
stop trying to be good enough for God!

Cling
to Jesus,

let yourself die,

and you will find life,
and you will find God,
and know him as a friend,
as a loving father,

I beg of you,

I weep for those who do not listen,
and for those who cannot hear,

Yahweh,
Jesus,

Why do I get to know the joy of knowing you
while others are blind?

and knowing this,
feeling the weight of this,

Why the hell do I return to my sin?
Why the hell do I return to my own efforts?

It is insanity.

God,

lead me more and more,

to the place where
I feel my emptiness apart from you,

Help me to better cling to you
Jesus,

I am a desperate man,

And I entreat you,
man or woman,

become desperate,
know emptiness,

and you will find fullness
in Jesus,

And a hope that is truly unshakable

Ehrman gets OWNED by Colbert

This made me laugh out loud more than I have in a long time

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bart Ehrman
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Gay Marriage Commercial

Reflections from my "Good" Friday

I drove back to my Arizona birthplace this morning from my current home, Biola University. Today has been such an abnormal day it has been hard for me, until now, to sit back and reflect on what happened when the God-man was crucified.

I just got back from watching the film Religulous. This is a documentary, hosted by the comedian Bill Maher, about how religion is irrational and unhelpful for modern society. I find it ironic that I watched this movie on Good Friday (I did not think of this until after I watched it). The movie did a great job of pointing out the evil religion has done/is doing. I do not give Bill Maher credit for doing this since its entirely too easy. Religion, in America especially, is moronic sometimes and Bill Maher was great at pointing out the stupidity on the parts of people who follow Christianity and other religions. Again, he is good at what he does but it doesn't take much searching to find idiotic people who name the name of Christ. To be blunt, I wish Bill Maher would get some balls and actually interview someone who has done scholarly work in answering the questions he had (maybe William Lane Craig or Lee Strobel?). His questions were not new or unique, they are the ones people have been asking ever since Jesus went back to heaven. I do not think he ever once-that the final film cut revealed-talked to someone who had intelligent answers for his questions. This made the movie somewhat frustrating for me.

All this behind me, I turn to the task of considering on the death of God-incarnate. What love does this black night reveal? What pain would have been heard in the voice of Jesus when he uttered "Father forgive them for they know not what they do"? I can only imagine. Yahweh in all his mystery decided to come as a man and die a shame-filled death. This death served the purpose of atoning for the sins of mankind but also as our example. That of seeking the good of others before our own. Jesus said that the greatest love that one could have for a friend would be to die for them (John 15:13). Then Jesus goes embodies this statement. As far as the atonement and the ugly beauty found in it, I feel unable to find words to describe it; Instead, I will post the words to a hymn that has helped me in my reflections.

O come and mourn with me awhile,
O come ye to the Savior’s side
O come, together let us mourn,
Jesus our Lord is crucified.

Seven times He spake seven words of love;
And all three hours His silence cried
For mercy on the souls of men;
Jesus our Lord is crucified.

O love of God! O sin of man!
In this dread act Your strength is tried;
And victory remains with love;
Jesus our Lord is crucified!

O break, O break, hard heart of mine!
Thy weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and His Judas were:
Jesus our Lord is crucified.

A broken heart, a fount of tears,
Ask, and they will not be denied;
A broken heart love’s cradle is:
Jesus our Lord is crucified.

And victory remains with love;
Jesus our Lord is crucified!

I do not want those I love to be blind to the beautiful

It is hard. It hurts. To see those people in my life that I love reject the beautiful one. The God who came down in human flesh and subjected himself to be murdered by those he designed. To bear the wrath of God for the evil of the world. The evil I have done. The evil others have done. The evil those I love have done. We have all hurt God. I have hurt him so much but yet he brings me to himself out of love. He tells me to trust him. Trust Jesus to take me to Yahweh. Who am I but a marred human being who brings pain to the God who made me? Yet Jesus, weeping because humanity has turned from God, takes the punishment for my evil and leads me before the throne of God by way of his blood. What must I do to make up for my filthiness? Nothing. God has done it already. I am no longer who I am in myself. I find my life and being through the homeless radical who came back from the dead. So many people I love can not see this and it hurts. My heart aches. It is hard to bear sometimes. I just want to scream that Jesus is the only life. But I want to scream it in a way that people hear it and embrace it.

Poem of Remembrance

God

Who are you?
Why do you love me?

I face who I am,
I am nothing,

I am a flower in your field,
Made by your hand,

but my beauty fades,
I die,

Death seeks me,
the inevitable,

Yet in you there is life,
life that starts tonight,

beauty that is yours
you give to me,

An adoption,

Am I really your child?

This truth,
wondrous,
mysterious,

I am

loved by God,

because,

I AM

decides to make me worthy

The Word of God is Alive and Active

I started my second semester of college today. It is refreshing to be back in the grind of school, which feels strange to me. I guess I am just tired of not doing anything productive. Anyway, I was in my Bible class today and my teacher was telling a story of how he was challenged in college to memorize Colossians 3:1-17. He ended the class but reciting it to the us and it almost brought tears to my eyes. I have been thinking lately what scripture is and how those seemingly static human words are actually the dynamic words of Yahweh himself. I really felt that I experienced this powerfully when he was reciting the passage he had memorized many years ago. I was overcome for a minute with the strength that seemed to come from those words. It was as if they were no longer human words but the breath of God.

How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytise?"

objective beauty

Great post I just read. I was really excited reading this as defining the "beauty" of God is something I am passionate about.

the paradox I live by

I feel like I need to clarify some things. The name of my blog is "reverence of the mysterious" and I want to explain the title and what it means to me. I would like say that I do not subscribe to the popular belief today that God is a great mystery that cannot be known with certainty. I believe in certainty. I think that is what makes Yahweh unique among other "gods". He has chosen to reveal himself. The reason we have the Bible is because God chose to reveal himself through human words. God is knowable and I do not buy into the false humility that comes with admitting that you are uncertain of all your theology. However, I am only 18 years old as I write this and I am uncertain about many of my beliefs and theology. I am at the stage of life where I am just starting to learn about who God is and exploring and defining what I believe. But I believe this journey will lead me somewhere and it will lead me to a place where I can define assuredly some things that I believe about God.

But in all this I would like to point out the reality that God is beyond human understanding and this is what makes God beautiful to me. He is mysterious and wonderful and I love exploring the things about him that I know I will never fully understand. So here is the paradox I live by: God is knowable and I can have certainty about what he reveals about himself in scripture yet God is also mysterious and beyond me and there are many things I cannot know about him. So my blog title means that I can know things about God, his character, how he relates to man, and what he demands of me; this is why I have the ability to stand in awe of him in "reverence". But it also means that He is a God who I see as beautifully "mysterious" and I love pursuing this being that is beyond my understanding.

kingdom epiphany

Jesus came two millenniums ago and proclaimed a kingdom. He preached the idea that the Kingdom of Yahweh was here. And the reality of this just dawned on me tonight in a new way while I was reading Matthew. God's kingdom is now. Now is the time. I do believe in a future kingdom, where Jesus will return to earth in bodily form and recreate earth, but the kingdom here and now is what will affect the future kingdom. I think Christian like to get caught up in morality and "living right". We get obsessed with being "good" when that means nothing unless it goes hand in hand with being a servant in the Kingdom. I have been struggling with uncertainty about what God wants me to do in certain aspects of my life but I feel like this sheds new light. Yahweh is calling me to pursue him and live for his kingdom and he will take care of the rest. I can be patient and trust God to be in control of my life. I can surrender control of my life to him. I know this might all sound very basic and simple, especially to those of you who grew up in a Christian church, but it has a renewed meaning to me right now. There is so much freedom in a life where proclaiming the reality of the Kingdom is all that life is about. My relationships are about showing the kingdom, my schooling is about showing the kingdom, my leisure is about showing the kingdom, my morality is about showing the kingdom, my money is about showing this kingdom, my time is about showing this kingdom, etc. I have noticed that it is such a struggle for me to living every hour with this kingdom in mind. There is still a part of me that is living for my own desires. I want the high calling of being a Kingdom servant to break me free from this.

"If Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and I believed it, would it be possible for me to proceed upon ambitions and desires that were more important to me than the ushering-in of that Kingdom?" -Nate(intothedesertblog.blogspot.com)

the purpose of earthly pleasure

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.” (C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity)

I Need Thee Every Hour

I love this hymn. So simple yet so beautiful.

I need thee every hour,
most gracious Lord;
no tender voice like thine
can peace afford.

I need thee, O I need thee;
every hour I need thee;
O bless me now, my Savior,
I come to thee.

I need thee every hour,
stay thou nearby;
temptations lose their power
when thou art nigh.

I need thee every hour,
in joy or pain;
come quickly and abide,
or life is in vain.

I need thee every hour;
teach me thy will;
and thy rich promises
in me fulfill.

I need thee every hour,
most Holy One;
O make me thine indeed,
thou blessèd Son.
(words by Annie Sherwood Hawks, 1872)

What if I lived like this?
What if I was conscious of my need for Yahweh every hour? every minute?

this struck me today

"There is more to life than study, study which at times can be frustrating or 'wearisome'. There is more to life than seeking; there must be finding. There is more to discipleship than sitting in an armchair reading a sound book on theology or a challenging book on discipleship. There must be commitment which flows out into action. So we come to what in this later commentator's [author of Ecclesiastes] view is the only thing left to say, 'the end of the matter': 'Fear God and keep his commandments'."

(Robert Davidson, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Soloman, commenting on Ecclesiastes 12:12-14)

nakedness-the key to understanding "the fall"

One question has always perplexed me. Why were Adam and Eve naked? Why was this the first thing that they noticed after they sinned? One of my favorite authors, Donald Miller, deals with this question in his book Searching for God Knows What but his discourse wasn't really an answer to my question, even though it was creative and humorous. I was sitting in my Old Testament class and my professor was the first person to give me a satisfactory answer to the question.

The key phrase is "And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25 ESV). Why do humans have a natural fear and shame about showing their nakedness to others? Yet, why does this not happen in a healthy marriage relationship? I think the key is that it is a trust issue. Adam and Eve walked with God in perfection and openness. There were no barriers between them and God. Therefore, God took care of them completely. This care was so absolutely complete that humanity had no reason to worry about themselves. There was no self-worry, no self-consciousness. The fact that they were naked never had any reason to cross their minds. God provided it all in his love and care for the masterpiece of his creation.

Well when our parents sinned, they suddenly became sinners and trust in God died in that moment. With that came this new idea to them of self-awareness. They began to notice things about themselves. They were introduced to the lie that humanity needed to care for themselves. The first humans suddenly become ashamed to show God their nakedness. God was no longer the intimate lover of their souls. I can almost hear the pain in God's voice when he asks: "Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:11 ESV). "The Fall" was a fall from trust. Faith and trust are now the most difficult things on this earth because humanity was introduced to the idea of self-care, self-worry, and shame.

God's judgment was to give humanity over to this. He provided a way, through toil, that humans would be able to care for themselves (though in a far inferior way). Then our loving God set out to restore a nation, Israel, back to trust and intimacy with him. The whole Old Testament is an unpacking of this plan to use Israel to be the focal point of this restoration of the world.

When the narrative reaches the New Testament, the Word of God becomes flesh and brings about a new covenant of restoration. Jesus bears the wrath of God in the place of humanity so that sin, the barrier to trust, can be done away with. I still don't understand why God only gave us a perfect sacrifice and didn't destroy sin completely at the cross, but this was his perfect plan. But in this new era Jesus calls us to completely rely on him once more. We are told that we need to seek God's kingdom first before ourselves and that God values us so highly as his image-bearers that we have no need to worry about our basic needs (Matthew 6:25-33). And now, as Christians seeking God's kingdom first, we groan (Roman 8:23). We await the final restoration promised by God, the promise that one day we will all be like our naked parents again and spend every moment worshiping God in his new earth (Revelation 21).

So Christian, lover of Jesus, let us seek the kingdom of, and be spiritually naked before, the God who has loved us and promised to provide for all we need.

remembering the cost of discipleship

I have arrived and moved into my dorm at Biola University where I will begin classes for my degree in Biblical Studies on Wednesday. It is an exciting experience to finally be a college student and to finally get to study the bible full-time. The one thing I have been faced with is how to adjust as my life and routine has radically changed. I realized today that I have forgotten what it really means to be a disciple. A disciple is one who has given up his own plan and embraced the call to simply walk by faith. At the church service I went to today the text was Luke 7:36-49. That passage is about a woman who the reader knows nothing about besides that she is a sinner yet she has a beautiful faith. She brings a smile to Jesus' face while everyone else is lost in their religion. What I got out of it was the simple but profound reminder that the Christian walk, when broken down, is just simply living to be faithful to Christ's callings. A life of fidelity trumps all wisdom, knowledge, good works, and religion. But living to be faithful has a huge cost that I realize now that I need to constantly commit to. To be someone who simply follows what Christ calls them to everyday means that a lot of our earthly desire have to be thrown out. This is hard to come to grips with sometimes. I am a selfish person. I want to do what I want to do and it is so hard to give up what I want to do for something that doesn't seem like fun. God knows us and knows how to stretch us. Being stretched by God is something I hate but also something I am able to love at the same time because I know it is how I learn and how God forms me into the man he wants me to be. I am looking forward to being stretched at Biola as well as looking forward to better learning how to simply be faithful to what God has called me to no matter how lame or ridiculous it sounds.

Should Christians pursue apologetics?

Here is what Karl Barth says:

The Gospel is not a truth among other truths. Rather, it sets a question-mark against all truths. The Gospel is not the door but the hinge. The man who apprehends its meaning is removed from all strife, because he is engaged in a strife with the whole, even with existence itself. Anxiety concerning the victory of the Gospel--that is, Christian Apologetics--is meaningless, because the Gospel is the victory by which the world is overcome. ... It [the Gospel] does not require representatives with a sense of responsibility, for it is as responsible for those who proclaim it as it is for those to whom it is proclaimed. It is the advocate of both. ... God does not need us. Indeed, if He were not God, He would be ashamed of us. We, at any rate, cannot be ashamed of Him. (The Epistle to the Romans, 35)

I don't know if I agree but it is definitely a credible idea that should be considered.

Belize part 4

Thursday rolled around and we had our last VBS session. I felt really worn down that day and it was hard for me to press on to give my best for these kids. The afternoon bible study went pretty smoothly but we only had a few girls show up. They went off with some of the leaders and I think they had some great conversations. After the bible study we went stayed at the baptist church and cleaned it up. Afterward we had a farewell ceremony with the pastor of the church. We exchanged gifts and words of encouragement. It was a bittersweet time. We attempted to go to sleep early since we had to be up early the next morning for our trip to Caye Caulker, a local island. We took a bus to Belize City on Friday. We then got on a water taxi for a 45 minute boat ride to the island. Right when we got there we got snorkeling gear rentals and went out to the local barrier reef. It was a fun experience as we got a short snorkeling tour of the reef and then a chance to swim and pet some wild stingrays. The rest of our time on the island (Friday afternoon, night, and Saturday morning) was a time of fun and reflection on the trip. As a team, we spent some time talking to each other about what we learned and what we loved about the trip. It was a perfect way to end the trip. On Saturday it was hard to say goodbye. The trip finally came to an end when I flew into Phoenix on Saturday night

Belize part 3

On Tuesday night our team put together an outreach event on the local basketball court. Two of our team members are skilled musicians so they played some music for awhile while people came. It turned out that the basketball court was actually the local gang hangout. However, because we were the there, many children came to hangout with us on the court. It was really cool to bring the community together in a place they normally feared. That night I sat with one of the local gang members and just got to talk to him for awhile during the service. The gang members were quite welcoming of us and open to talking about whatever. I got to share the gospel with the young man I was talking to and I am glad God opened up the conversation to go that way. Well Wednesday rolled around and in the morning we did VBS again for the kids. It went quite well that morning. Then, that afternoon, instead of doing our usual games and bible study we got to take a break from ministry and our team traveled to the Mayan ruins of Xuantunich. It was a relaxing even if we were walking around the whole time. That night we had another outreach event very similar to the previous night. It was a much bigger turn out from both the community and the gang community. Just like the previous night I spent some time with the gang members. I talked to a guy named Richard. We talked for at least an hour and he did most of the talk which was fine because he was just sharing the story of his life. I loved that he was so open with me about his struggles and fears and everything else. It was probably the best ministry conversation I had the whole trip and it was one of the biggest highlights of the trip for me. I got to share a little of my story and a little about Jesus but what really mattered what I felt like we really connected and I got to know who he really was. It was the first time I got to learn how gang member's think and it showed me how human and like us they really are. A lot of the "bad" things he has done are things I could see myself doing in his situation. Then we went back to the hotel and to bed, knowing that the next day would be our last day with the children and that community.

Dark Thoughts from The Dark Knight

Great article on the themes of The Dark Knight

late night emotions

I went to see the new batman movie "The Dark Knight" tonight. It was an amazing film and it wasn't your run-of-the-mill super hero flick. This was a dark movie. Movies have a profound impact on my emotions, especially good film. This movie was one those. Dark movies bring me to a place where I can "feel" evil. I drove home crying out to God realizing the evil I had seen in the lives of people around me. I don't understand why God seems to hide his face from evil. I don't understand why God lets false ideas about him endure. I don't understand why God chooses to only show his true glory and righteousness to some and not all. I don't understand why I see people who seem to be seeking God being led into falsehoods. I thought God was a God who rewards those who earnestly seek him?

Also, for the first time in my life I think I felt what the apostle Paul felt when he said that he would rather himself be cut off from Christ so that the people he loved could know Christ. I felt like I wanted to take some of my friends place so that they could know Christ and have the peace that comes with faith in that savior. Normally, when I would read about Paul saying that, I would have to admit I was too selfish to feel that way but tonight the Lord gave me a taste of what that feels like. I feel that I could name a few people who I would trade places with so that they could experience true life.

In all this I still trust that the Lord is just, a God of his word, and full of love even if I don't see it.

Belize part 2

On the third day of our trip, Monday, we started our Vacation Bible School in the morning. A few of the members of our team went out and did home visits right before starting VBS so that we could tell more people about it. The first day was hectic and i was surprised by the number of kids that showed up. The first three days of the trip were rough on me because it took me until Tuesday to recover from having to wake up at 3 in the morning to catch our flight. Added to my fatigue from getting up so early, the first night the air conditioning in my room wouldn't work right so I could not sleep. Now on Monday afternoon we had our first bible study for the teens in the community. A good number of teens showed up but them seemed really bored and uninterested during the lesson. I was a little frustrated because these kids just seemed so apathetic. Later that afternoon our team went to a local children's home. It was basically a home for kids whose parents couldn't afford to take care of them. It was our first day there and it was hard. The guys we were trying to connect with were really closed off. We played some volleyball with them but it seemed like we could only connect with the younger children. Tuesday came around and we did the same thing in the morning and afternoon. At the bible study I undertook the responsibility of leading it. The problem was I didn't really know what I had my plan thrown out when only a fraction of the kids came back for the second day. The kids seemed even more apathetic than the day before and I don't know how I made it through the bible study. It was difficult to teach when they didn't seem to have any desire to learn. At the end of the study we broke up into smaller groups and I ended up with a group of guys. I decided that since they like sports I could try teaching about Paul's illustration of Christian's running a race. What I realized from the conversation that ensued was that these kids had no actual concept of the Gospel. They still thought that God was a militant leader who wanted them to be good so that they could get into heaven. So I spent the next 20 minutes or so telling them about Jesus and his loved that loved us first. They seemed pretty attentive to that and my only regret is not getting the chance to follow up with them on what they thought. On Tuesday at the children's home, which was our second but last day there, We played some soccer with the kids in hopes of getting the guys to open up but with little luck. The girls on our team got to spend a ton of time with the girls from the home as they painted nails and talked about life. I spent some time hanging out with some of the younger kids.

becoming spiritual

I was reading through some early Christian writings and I came across this:

"For the scripture saith; Woe unto them that are wise for
themselves, and understanding in their own sight. Let us become
spiritual, let us become a temple perfect unto God. As far as in us
lies, let us exercise ourselves in the fear of God, [and] let us
strive to keep His commandments, that we may rejoice in His
ordinances." -THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS 4:11 Translated by J.B. Lightfoot.

Belize part 1

I just returned from a 7 day trip to Belize. I love mission trips. I always come back how feeling like I learned and experienced so much. This trip was a very surreal experience but now that I am back home I really miss it. I think this past week I really got to live. I got to live the way that God wants me to and it was so freeing. I arrived in Belize on Saturday, July 5th and when I was only in Belize for a few hours we were already serving the people of Belize by going to a local rest home and hanging out with the people there. On Sunday we attended church at the Baptist church that we hosted our Vacation Bible School at. Our team was made of 18 college students from my church, a group of high school students from a Roman Catholic church in Atlanta, and then a lady and her niece from Illinois. I feel that God really put a very good team together. Even though I had never met the people from Atlanta or Illinois, we really worked well together.

rhetoric

I am reading Ben Witherington's book The Living Word of God and he talks about this idea of biblical rhetoric. I was really stuck by his unpacking of Paul's persuasion techniques in the letter to Philemon. He shows how Paul's rhetoric would be considered manipulative and arm-twisting in our 21st century culture but in Paul's cultural context it was the norm as far as persuasion goes. Then Witherington mentions the fact that all preaching and evangelism is based on persuasion, however, our rhetoric needs to change based on the culture. We cannot compromise the truth of the message, we just have to present things in a culturally sensitive way that uses a type of persuasion that the current culture can respond to. I was thinking about this in context of evangelism. In most high schools, English classes read Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Now this sermon uses a rhetoric that is considered to be very manipulative by post-modern standards. Most preachers today realize that preaching hell and damnation is not something people respond well to. However, in Edwards' context, people really could relate to what he was saying and his preaching was very effective. So knowing all this, it is the job of the preacher and the evangelist to find a rhetorical style that speaks to their specific cultural context.

grim reality

there are 10 million millionaries in the world yet the majority of the world's population lives in poverty

Why do we follow the Christian God?

This is a question I have been pondering lately. I have been looking at all the different reasons that human beings, including myself, give for worshiping this God. Many say that its because of the "joy" it brings. Now I believe that a life devoted to God will ultimately bring a kind of joy and peace that goes beyond understanding but is it our fundamental reason for following this God? If our faith was based on this, then it would be greatly weakened when joy seems distant. No human being that I know of has ever been joyful their whole life, times of sorrow, pain, and despair are natural results of being a human in this broken world. Sure we can say we have joy in knowing that Christ has loved us and that everything will be made right in the end, but isn't that just simply comfort? I can be comforted but that is not always the same thing as having joy. I know in my Christian life I have had plenty of times when joy seemed to escape me. Did Job have joy when he lost everything? no, he thought God was out to get him, yet he still fell on his face and worshiped.

Now for the second major reason. I grew up thinking this and I think I am beginning to realize that it is not true. The second reason is that Christianity offers the best answers to life's questions. I think this is a huge mistake on Christianity's part to ever assume it has all the answers. It doesn't. All we have is an ancient collection of books about God's interaction with humanity. This is where we can find truth, this is where we find answers but this ancient narrative leaves many questions unanswered. The more I learn about the bible and theology the more questions I have. Its common for apologists to try to portray Christianity as the religion that is rational and answers life's deep fundamental questions. While I agree somewhat that in Christ some deep fundamental questions can be answered, only some are and we can disagree amongst ourselves what is really important to answer or even can be conclusively answered. This is part of the reason that the church is divided today.

Now what are we left with? If we aren't worshiping God because he gives us joy or or he gives us answers then why have millions of people chosen to follow him with their lives?

I think the answer is quiet simple.

He is GOD
and he is worthy of our complete trust and obedience.

Or as the writer of Ecclesiastes said it:
"The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (Ecclesiastes 12:13 ESV)



Just what I have been thinking about lately. Feedback is very welcome

N.T. Wright on the Colbert Report

Waiting

Where I am at:

"To you, O Lord, I call;
my rock, be not deaf to me,
lest, if you be silent to me,
I become like those who go down to the pit.
Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy,
when I cry to you for help,
when I lift up my hands
toward your most holy sanctuary.
Do not drag me off with the wicked,
with the workers of evil,
who speak peace with their neighbors
while evil is in their hearts." -Psalm 28:1-3


Waiting to get here:

"Blessed be the Lord!
For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.
The Lord is the strength of his people;
he is the saving refuge of his anointed.
Oh, save your people and bless your heritage!
Be their shepherd and carry them forever." -Psalm 28:6-9

the things churches do...

bringing sexy back or bringing serving back?

confused and frustrated

I feel like a "child" who is being "tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes" (Ephesians 4:14) and yet I don't know how to escape.

I don't know who to believe, what to believe.

I am just so lost when it comes to faith and doctrine. It seems that there is no way to know what is true. Granted the bible is our authority on what is true but the problem is that we are all flawed interpreters. How am I suppose to know what the bible was really saying? Some say that we need to pray, ask the holy spirit to guide us as we read and study but there are many bible scholars who are doing that and are still coming up with completely different interpretations.

I am the kind of person who is easily swayed but a good argument and any diligent search will reveal a convincing argument to any side of an issue, especially in theology.

My biggest frustration is with the existence of so many different denominations, and types of "Christianity." I am lost to why God would allow so much confusion in his church, so much division. I don't accept the Mormon answer to this problem (the Mormon church is God's reinstated true unified church) but then again, how the heck am I suppose to know that Mormonism isn't true? Granted it goes against the bible in its doctrine but then again, how the heck do we know we are interpreting it right?

I read Ephesians 4 and am utterly depressed by how far removed the church today seems from the way it is described there.

And in all this God seems silent to me. I don't know where to turn.



P.S. No, Don't worry I won't become a Mormon, if for no other reason, I have a personal problem with Mormonism, God is presented as an exalted man just like us. I just couldn't bring myself to worship an exalted version of me.