So I'm making my way through Job right now. I read a few chapters this morning and it got me thinking. I observed that Job and his friends spend about 30 chapters or so complaining. They question God and Job laments over ever being born. I noticed that God was not part of the conversation and my immediate questions was, "why?" When God DOES respond, He does not respond by being defensive or giving Job and his friends a point-by-point counter argument, but he points to creation. His main point was that if we cannot even understand the intricacies of his creation, then how are we to understand the ways He chooses to move in our lives?
Sometimes I feel a lot like Job. I was talking to David last week about waling in the desert. I feel like I have been walking in the dessert since June. Between the dying and death of my grandmother, being in Wilmore, and trying to make it through the summer in my house, I felt stranded in the desert. God's silence weighed heavy on me and I struggled to trust that he was walking with me. A new year at Asbury started and here and there God brought me to a stream in the desert and I was able to drink and quench that thirst in my heart. Here it is, the end of October, and I have to admit that maybe now, I am walking somewhere between the promised land and the desert. I can sense that I am slowly making my way out of the desert and I am recognizing that God has carried me through a lot.
So yes, I did feel like Job for a while, wanting to make all the bad stuff go away and to somehow figure out God's ways. That I can never do. I guess in my observations of the book of Job, I began to wonder if when all we can do is lament about being in the desert, does God purposely remain silent? Does He sit there, drumming his fingers and rolling his eyes, wondering when we'll just shut-up and listen? I think that it's quite possible that when we complain instead of being still before the Lord, that God just lets us complain and waits. I've realized that I need to wait. I need to wait and be still and listen. When God places me in the desert, it's because He wants to force me to trust Him. He wants to see if I can just keep my mouth and wait.
Ok God, I get it. I'm waiting. I'm listening.
In His Mercy.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Prayer
Prayer is something that has been on my heart lately. Saturday afternoon, I found myself sitting off in my littl nook in my bedroom, no music, no noise, and a heavy heart. I told God I had no idea how to pray or what to pray. I just felt like something was missing in my prayer time. The funny thing, God has been teaching me about prayer in unexpected ways. I had always said that intercessory prayer was not my gift. Now that I am seeing this in writing, I realize how ridiculous this may sound to some people. Anyhow, I have found that some of my most powerful prayer times in the past few weeks have been the times I have prayed for other people- for my roommate, for David, for David's sister, etc. I feel the Spirit moving through my words- or should I say God's words? Then I go to pray by myself and after praying for the obvious, I am left with a blank mind that can't think of a single thing to pray for. What is that all about??? Maybe God is trying to show me that there is power in prayer in numbers. But still, something is missing here for me....
I love that verse in Romans about how when we don't know how to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. What exactly are these groans? I stumble over my words, but somehow God in his omniscience understands the graons of the Spirit. I guess the moral of this story is to rest in the promise that God knows my heart. He knows me with a depth I will never even be able to know myself with. Maybe prayer is supposed to be a mystery.....
In His Mercy.
I love that verse in Romans about how when we don't know how to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. What exactly are these groans? I stumble over my words, but somehow God in his omniscience understands the graons of the Spirit. I guess the moral of this story is to rest in the promise that God knows my heart. He knows me with a depth I will never even be able to know myself with. Maybe prayer is supposed to be a mystery.....
In His Mercy.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Pride and Prejudice
David and I had an interesting conversation. It started with President Bush. We both agreed that because he's our preseident, we need to support him. Granted, I didn't support Bill Clinton, but excuse me if I think a husband should be faithful to his wife- but that's another story in and of itself. See, I may not agree with all the decisions that Bush has made, but he hasn't completely shattered by belief that he has the ability to lead this country.
So then our conversation moved to how America has this underlying pride. America thinks that "the West knows best" and because of this, I think that there are parts of this world that truly resent us. Understandable, I suppose. I then made the comment that the consumerism in America is a huge hindrance to God's work. All the stuff we have makes it hard for us to truly have faith that GOd can move mountains and calm the raging seas. After the tsunami of 2004, one of the students at my college told stories of God's power at work. He was from Sri Lanka and his father is a pastor there. He told us how a pastor stood on the steps of his church and as the waters came towards him he said "in the name fo Jesus Christ, do not come near this church" and amazingly, the water split and went around the building, leaving it undamaged by water. Does that not blow your mind? The next question I would ask is when was the last time you saw this happen?
The sad thing is that consumerism has covered our hearts with a blanket of comfort. I'll be the first to admit that I have a hard time working outside of my upper-class frame of mind. I grew-up in wealth and have never known what it's like to be in need. I have to believe that there is a reason God placed me in the environment that I was in. But yes, sometimes I have toruble seeing past what I have always known. But I can tell you that I can see enough to know that there are about 40 kids in my life that need to be loved. I believe with all my heart that God has given me the awesome responsibility of being Jesus to these kids, who have come to know poverty, drugs, and abuse as the normal way of life. This is not ok to me. These kids have opened my eyes to so much and showed me that yes, I can work outside of my box. I have to be and honestly, I want to.
Switchfoot has an amazing song from about 4 years back called 24. Here are some lyrics from it:
I wanna see miracles
To see the world change
Wrestled the angel for more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
I'm singing 'Spirit, take me up in arms with You'
And you're raising the dead in me
I DO want to see miracles. I want more than just a feeling or a cause. I want the dead in me to be raised to a new life with Christ because lets face it, we all have "deadness" in us that only God can bring life to. And He wants to and that's the most amazing part of it all. God is just waiting for us to hand him the reigns of this consumer-driven society and he's just waiting to bust out some miraculous, mind-boggling things. Are we ready for it????? "I want to see miracles, see the world change...."
In His Mercy.
So then our conversation moved to how America has this underlying pride. America thinks that "the West knows best" and because of this, I think that there are parts of this world that truly resent us. Understandable, I suppose. I then made the comment that the consumerism in America is a huge hindrance to God's work. All the stuff we have makes it hard for us to truly have faith that GOd can move mountains and calm the raging seas. After the tsunami of 2004, one of the students at my college told stories of God's power at work. He was from Sri Lanka and his father is a pastor there. He told us how a pastor stood on the steps of his church and as the waters came towards him he said "in the name fo Jesus Christ, do not come near this church" and amazingly, the water split and went around the building, leaving it undamaged by water. Does that not blow your mind? The next question I would ask is when was the last time you saw this happen?
The sad thing is that consumerism has covered our hearts with a blanket of comfort. I'll be the first to admit that I have a hard time working outside of my upper-class frame of mind. I grew-up in wealth and have never known what it's like to be in need. I have to believe that there is a reason God placed me in the environment that I was in. But yes, sometimes I have toruble seeing past what I have always known. But I can tell you that I can see enough to know that there are about 40 kids in my life that need to be loved. I believe with all my heart that God has given me the awesome responsibility of being Jesus to these kids, who have come to know poverty, drugs, and abuse as the normal way of life. This is not ok to me. These kids have opened my eyes to so much and showed me that yes, I can work outside of my box. I have to be and honestly, I want to.
Switchfoot has an amazing song from about 4 years back called 24. Here are some lyrics from it:
I wanna see miracles
To see the world change
Wrestled the angel for more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
I'm singing 'Spirit, take me up in arms with You'
And you're raising the dead in me
I DO want to see miracles. I want more than just a feeling or a cause. I want the dead in me to be raised to a new life with Christ because lets face it, we all have "deadness" in us that only God can bring life to. And He wants to and that's the most amazing part of it all. God is just waiting for us to hand him the reigns of this consumer-driven society and he's just waiting to bust out some miraculous, mind-boggling things. Are we ready for it????? "I want to see miracles, see the world change...."
In His Mercy.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
What You Want
You're softer than a cannon blast
But your effects much longer last
And I want you just like a hole in my head
But I need you like a meal and a bed
And you say, "Come on, I'm not what you're after."
But I know you're not just anyone, anyone
(chorus)
But I'm not what you want
No, I'm not anyone
But if you needed me
Then I could be someone
And you're an army in a horse
And you have taken me by force
And all the freedom in this world could not resist
The sweet temptation of your sweet elusiveness
So I say "Come on!" as the gate swings open
Cause I know you're not just anyone, anyone
(bridge)
And the lie's always cheaper than the truth
But the lie's all I've ever known of you
Maybe none of this is true
This is a song by Caedmon's Call called "What You Want." I was listening to this song this morning and it brought tears to my eyes. The line I love is "And you're an army in a horse and you've taken me by force." I thought of when I became a Christian. Jesus rescued me from a dark pit, one where I thought I had all the answers in the world, but came to find out that I didn't know a thing. I had nothing to call faithful. I had nothing to call true hope. And then Jesus stormed into my heart and took me by force. He told me that he was THE answer, that He was faithful, that He had an abundance of hope and love and grace to show me. And I let Him. Jesus doesn't NEED me by any means, but he wants me and that gives me a reason to be somebody....
I am so blessed. Everything in my life is gift of my gracious God. He's not just anyone....
In His Mercy.
But your effects much longer last
And I want you just like a hole in my head
But I need you like a meal and a bed
And you say, "Come on, I'm not what you're after."
But I know you're not just anyone, anyone
(chorus)
But I'm not what you want
No, I'm not anyone
But if you needed me
Then I could be someone
And you're an army in a horse
And you have taken me by force
And all the freedom in this world could not resist
The sweet temptation of your sweet elusiveness
So I say "Come on!" as the gate swings open
Cause I know you're not just anyone, anyone
(bridge)
And the lie's always cheaper than the truth
But the lie's all I've ever known of you
Maybe none of this is true
This is a song by Caedmon's Call called "What You Want." I was listening to this song this morning and it brought tears to my eyes. The line I love is "And you're an army in a horse and you've taken me by force." I thought of when I became a Christian. Jesus rescued me from a dark pit, one where I thought I had all the answers in the world, but came to find out that I didn't know a thing. I had nothing to call faithful. I had nothing to call true hope. And then Jesus stormed into my heart and took me by force. He told me that he was THE answer, that He was faithful, that He had an abundance of hope and love and grace to show me. And I let Him. Jesus doesn't NEED me by any means, but he wants me and that gives me a reason to be somebody....
I am so blessed. Everything in my life is gift of my gracious God. He's not just anyone....
In His Mercy.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Creation
An interesting debate was sparked in doctrine class yesterday. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to really resolve the issue or give it the attention that it maybe should have been. We were talking about creation and our mandate to care for creation. Someone raised their hand and said the most important thing was that we are giving Jesus to people. Someone else responded that that can be dangerous because we can become arrogant about evangelism, so we shouldn't think that we have to evangelize people. Here are my thoughts.
One, the issue of the environment needing to be cared for over and against the need to care for other humans. I was in college about 3 years ago when that massive Tsunami hit Sri Lanka and other countries. About two weeks later, we had a chapel service where it was discussed. A professor got up and went on for about a half hour on the poor sea turtles that were now in dnager because of all the flooding. Excuse me??? The sea turtles??? To make matters worse, there was a student who was from Sri Lanka and he was disgusted by this chapel, as he sould've been. Forget the turtles, what about the PEOPLE???? When all is said and done, I think my top priority would be the people, not the animals. Not to say that the environment is not an important issue. It is. But there's a time and a plce for worrying about it.
Two, we are called to evangelize. But, if we aren't willing to provide for the physical needs of other people, then we souldn't bother evangelizing. Telling a hungry person that "man cannot live on bread alone" is probably going to fall on deaf ears. How about giving a hungry person some food and saying, "taste and see that the Lord is good."
Three, to say that we shouldn't worry about evangelizing and that we shouldn't think "we have to share Jesus with this person because otherwise they'll never hear about His name" out of fear of arrogance might be a little extreme. Yes, humility should be a huge factor in this, but if we adopt this "I'm not even going to go there" attitude, then we are in danger of ignoring the Great Commission altogether.
Really, all of these issue need to be held in balance and perspective with each other. Thus ends my rant...
In His Mercy.
One, the issue of the environment needing to be cared for over and against the need to care for other humans. I was in college about 3 years ago when that massive Tsunami hit Sri Lanka and other countries. About two weeks later, we had a chapel service where it was discussed. A professor got up and went on for about a half hour on the poor sea turtles that were now in dnager because of all the flooding. Excuse me??? The sea turtles??? To make matters worse, there was a student who was from Sri Lanka and he was disgusted by this chapel, as he sould've been. Forget the turtles, what about the PEOPLE???? When all is said and done, I think my top priority would be the people, not the animals. Not to say that the environment is not an important issue. It is. But there's a time and a plce for worrying about it.
Two, we are called to evangelize. But, if we aren't willing to provide for the physical needs of other people, then we souldn't bother evangelizing. Telling a hungry person that "man cannot live on bread alone" is probably going to fall on deaf ears. How about giving a hungry person some food and saying, "taste and see that the Lord is good."
Three, to say that we shouldn't worry about evangelizing and that we shouldn't think "we have to share Jesus with this person because otherwise they'll never hear about His name" out of fear of arrogance might be a little extreme. Yes, humility should be a huge factor in this, but if we adopt this "I'm not even going to go there" attitude, then we are in danger of ignoring the Great Commission altogether.
Really, all of these issue need to be held in balance and perspective with each other. Thus ends my rant...
In His Mercy.
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