I would have written on this yesterday, but arrived at my travel destination only to find that they were without internet. Such is life sometimes. You get to where you are going only to find it is not exactly what you were expecting. Now, no internet is not the same as other situations to which this could refer, but still.
That is why yesterday's devotion was a perfect reminder for me, the close of it in particular: "if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious."
In my current unsettled state, having been uprooted from Colorado but not yet placed in my next spot, there has been a yearning to know where and in which direction I should go in order to fit with God's plan for me. Is it to stay with my plans to move to Spokane before heading overseas, or do I scrap the entire Spokane plans to pursue other avenues in Colorado? In some ways, as long as in every moment I am obedient to God, it does not matter. And the end point in and of itself is meaningless without the practice of obeying God all along the way. I think that if one is focused on honoring and obeying God daily, that they will find that they will arrive at the end God has designed for them, in the spiritual attitude to fulfill God's purpose in the lives of others at that point. In contrast, if one is so determined to reach an end for the sake of arriving that they forsake God's direction along the way, then they will find that the end is not exactly what they were expecting.
So I will walk, calm in calamity and tranquil in turmoil, knowing that my God is in complete control.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Another Lengthy Drive
As desert sand for lonely stream
So I thirst for thee,
A single drop for a single grain
Wets, fills, overflows.
The land, ever-parched
Your water, ever-present.
Let me drink my full,
'Til memory of dry hunger fades
And with one sip watch
As in the barren wasteland, life blooms.
So I thirst for thee,
A single drop for a single grain
Wets, fills, overflows.
The land, ever-parched
Your water, ever-present.
Let me drink my full,
'Til memory of dry hunger fades
And with one sip watch
As in the barren wasteland, life blooms.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Part II
One of the benefits of having a mind that refuses to shut off is that it keeps you company on long trips. At times, I have regretted having thoughts that kept going. As a youth, so many nights I wouldn't be able to sleep because I would scare myself with "what ifs." what if the house catches fire, what if robbers break in, what if, what if, what if. It would get to the point where every sound in the house became the footfall of an intruder, every shadow on the wall a harbinger of doom. But it wasn't necessarily that which kept me awake. I would not be able to sleep, because I would play out the event in my mind, the possibilities, every possible action (at least those an 8-10 year old thought possible).
To this day, I have yet to keep from doing this. My mind takes a scenario and runs through possible outcomes, what responses of mine cause which variations. It is almost obsessive-compulsive. Phone calls to make appointments are completely scripted, it's just too bad the other person doesn't know the part.
I think part of the reason for it was wanting absolute control over the things in my life, an attitude that God has been breaking for years in many different aspects. All my planning and fretting was keeping me from going and doing. The DC talk song What if I Stumble was my anthem of inactivity.
That is what has been so cool about recent events. God has taken so much control away from me, not given me the time to prevaricate, and so I have been learning to trust and follow.
Obedient in a little, more will be given. I can't run the marathon without learning to run a mile. But the training is progressing.
To this day, I have yet to keep from doing this. My mind takes a scenario and runs through possible outcomes, what responses of mine cause which variations. It is almost obsessive-compulsive. Phone calls to make appointments are completely scripted, it's just too bad the other person doesn't know the part.
I think part of the reason for it was wanting absolute control over the things in my life, an attitude that God has been breaking for years in many different aspects. All my planning and fretting was keeping me from going and doing. The DC talk song What if I Stumble was my anthem of inactivity.
That is what has been so cool about recent events. God has taken so much control away from me, not given me the time to prevaricate, and so I have been learning to trust and follow.
Obedient in a little, more will be given. I can't run the marathon without learning to run a mile. But the training is progressing.
Monday, July 14, 2008
A Long Drive
About half way there I discovered that it was further away than I thought. Good thing I like driving.
There is something so serene about driving on the open road for hours on end. It is the same peaceful feeling that I get watching animals in zoos or aquariums (having just been to Monterey Bay) and knowing that I could just sit for hours watching random fish and not get bored. I love the ability to wonder about the simple things. I get lost in the blur of passing landscapes and time, setting the mind to roving random topics, flitting from one to the other like a darting fish.
Although sometimes it sits on a topic, especially when someone else helps set the anchor. In this particular case, the subject has been marriage. It seems I have reached that age when more and more of my peers are getting or have gotten married recently, and so it provokes the topic a little more than my own natural inclinations. So some thoughts and opinions:
1)Marriage is really, really, really important. It starts with Christ and Love, and starting anywhere else reduces the importance of it. Right, marriage is the earthly symbol of the relationship between Christ and the Church. To greatly simplify, for lack of space and time, Jesus died so that the greatest need of the Church was met, namely the sanctification and redemption of the believers. From this stems, "there is no greater love than this, that a man would lay down his life for another." Many men would gladly say that they would die for the woman they love, and use that as the basis for their love. What I mean is that because a man thinks he is willing to die for a woman, he therefore loves her, and loving her is in love with her. This starts to fall apart, however, when one considers the full relationship of Christ to the Church. Christ didn't just die for the Church, he also lived a full life as a servant to the Church, filling her every need up to the point where he fulfilled her greatest need by his death and resurrection, and even then he still provided for her. His life was a daily service, even to the point of training those who would become her guardians (the disciples). He took care of all the parts (the various sinners who came for forgiveness/healing, cleaning out the temple, teaching how to pray, etc) tirelessly and endlessly. Applying this to marriage then, we see the role of the husband, in short, is to protect, guard, and serve. Only when a man is fulfilling this part do the well known (and mislabeled) "subservient" commands of passages like those found in Ephesians make complete sense. In this relationship it is not degrading or subservient for the woman to obey her husband, because his aim and desire is to take care of her needs. This is the beginning of a more complete view of the marriage relationship
2) This has more to do with my own readiness for marriage. I want to get married. Soon. I am ready to start a family. And I am not ready for either. Does a man have to be fully prepared for married life before getting married? Is this even possible? Those questions have come up in regards to lots of different areas recently. Is it prideful and sinful to say to oneself, I am ready for marriage/missions/ministry? Does that statement inherently leave out the fact that the only good in us is Christ's life in us? Because if we are supposed to get to the point where we say, I am now fully equipped for ________, then I am really worried that I will never get to that point. I feel disqualified already. My sinful disobedience in the past has made certain traditional prerequisites impossible. The type of girl I would want to marry would be forced to wrestle with my past as I have wrestled with it, and suffer for it. The degree of forgiveness is something I am not sure I could ever be comfortable asking from a godly young woman. I would have a hard time inflicting that experience upon someone I deeply care about, and want to guard and protect her innocence and purity. How can the act of confession/forgiveness do anything but the opposite of guard her innocence? I know by the grace of God I am forgiven, and I know it is only by the grace of God that I can live with any good in me. Is it so straightforward as asking woman I wish to marry to accept the person I am, not the man who is dead in my past?
And this doesn't even begin to touch on the ability, or current lack thereof to put a roof over her head, to provide her with the security of income, and such. In some ways, that is a different lesson though, a lesson on dependence on God and His provision, but at the same point one cannot sit under the apple tree waiting for the season for it to blossom and provide fruit. One would starve in winter.
There is something so serene about driving on the open road for hours on end. It is the same peaceful feeling that I get watching animals in zoos or aquariums (having just been to Monterey Bay) and knowing that I could just sit for hours watching random fish and not get bored. I love the ability to wonder about the simple things. I get lost in the blur of passing landscapes and time, setting the mind to roving random topics, flitting from one to the other like a darting fish.
Although sometimes it sits on a topic, especially when someone else helps set the anchor. In this particular case, the subject has been marriage. It seems I have reached that age when more and more of my peers are getting or have gotten married recently, and so it provokes the topic a little more than my own natural inclinations. So some thoughts and opinions:
1)Marriage is really, really, really important. It starts with Christ and Love, and starting anywhere else reduces the importance of it. Right, marriage is the earthly symbol of the relationship between Christ and the Church. To greatly simplify, for lack of space and time, Jesus died so that the greatest need of the Church was met, namely the sanctification and redemption of the believers. From this stems, "there is no greater love than this, that a man would lay down his life for another." Many men would gladly say that they would die for the woman they love, and use that as the basis for their love. What I mean is that because a man thinks he is willing to die for a woman, he therefore loves her, and loving her is in love with her. This starts to fall apart, however, when one considers the full relationship of Christ to the Church. Christ didn't just die for the Church, he also lived a full life as a servant to the Church, filling her every need up to the point where he fulfilled her greatest need by his death and resurrection, and even then he still provided for her. His life was a daily service, even to the point of training those who would become her guardians (the disciples). He took care of all the parts (the various sinners who came for forgiveness/healing, cleaning out the temple, teaching how to pray, etc) tirelessly and endlessly. Applying this to marriage then, we see the role of the husband, in short, is to protect, guard, and serve. Only when a man is fulfilling this part do the well known (and mislabeled) "subservient" commands of passages like those found in Ephesians make complete sense. In this relationship it is not degrading or subservient for the woman to obey her husband, because his aim and desire is to take care of her needs. This is the beginning of a more complete view of the marriage relationship
2) This has more to do with my own readiness for marriage. I want to get married. Soon. I am ready to start a family. And I am not ready for either. Does a man have to be fully prepared for married life before getting married? Is this even possible? Those questions have come up in regards to lots of different areas recently. Is it prideful and sinful to say to oneself, I am ready for marriage/missions/ministry? Does that statement inherently leave out the fact that the only good in us is Christ's life in us? Because if we are supposed to get to the point where we say, I am now fully equipped for ________, then I am really worried that I will never get to that point. I feel disqualified already. My sinful disobedience in the past has made certain traditional prerequisites impossible. The type of girl I would want to marry would be forced to wrestle with my past as I have wrestled with it, and suffer for it. The degree of forgiveness is something I am not sure I could ever be comfortable asking from a godly young woman. I would have a hard time inflicting that experience upon someone I deeply care about, and want to guard and protect her innocence and purity. How can the act of confession/forgiveness do anything but the opposite of guard her innocence? I know by the grace of God I am forgiven, and I know it is only by the grace of God that I can live with any good in me. Is it so straightforward as asking woman I wish to marry to accept the person I am, not the man who is dead in my past?
And this doesn't even begin to touch on the ability, or current lack thereof to put a roof over her head, to provide her with the security of income, and such. In some ways, that is a different lesson though, a lesson on dependence on God and His provision, but at the same point one cannot sit under the apple tree waiting for the season for it to blossom and provide fruit. One would starve in winter.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
A Home for the Homeless
I am starting this blog for several reasons: to help friends keep in touch as the next phases of my life take place, to keep track of the Lord's workings in my life, to record random thoughts that might interest some of you, and to explore a new form of expression.
Why now? Well, the idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while, and as it is a time of major transition in my life, it seems an ideal time. Plus some other friends have started blogging or returned to it, and it seems like something to do. I guess also it seems a little more private and at the same point more universal than facebook notes.
There also is this need for me to have something consistent in my life. I got the following quote from a novel I read a while ago (so i'm not positive about the author/speaker):
"You must go home again, grit your teeth and however arduous the exercixe, determine, without embellishment, your exact coordinates at Home, your longitudes and latitudes. Only then, will you stop looking back and see the spectacular view in front of you."
-Swithin "Whereabouts, 1917"
The feeling like I've been homeless ever since I left for college in 2002 has been very trying. I yearn for the comfort of having something/someone to return to, a place where I, not the face the world sees, but the maskless ugly/beautiful creature, am known.
At the same point, it could easily appear that I have had opportunities to begin to establish this home. The last 9 months have been some of the most incredible in my life in regards to feeling at home in a community outside of my family. Getting to know the Zs and the rest of the Bible study group has been such a divine blessing that leaving them and moving on has been more heart wrenching than i would have imagined. The roots that had grown in the short time I spent in Colorado were deeper than I had imagined, and a significant part of me wants to return to that soil.
But for right now, i am led onwards. So you are welcome to journey a long. There are irons in the fire, gas in the car, and a vast array of roads ahead to chose form.
Why now? Well, the idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while, and as it is a time of major transition in my life, it seems an ideal time. Plus some other friends have started blogging or returned to it, and it seems like something to do. I guess also it seems a little more private and at the same point more universal than facebook notes.
There also is this need for me to have something consistent in my life. I got the following quote from a novel I read a while ago (so i'm not positive about the author/speaker):
"You must go home again, grit your teeth and however arduous the exercixe, determine, without embellishment, your exact coordinates at Home, your longitudes and latitudes. Only then, will you stop looking back and see the spectacular view in front of you."
-Swithin "Whereabouts, 1917"
The feeling like I've been homeless ever since I left for college in 2002 has been very trying. I yearn for the comfort of having something/someone to return to, a place where I, not the face the world sees, but the maskless ugly/beautiful creature, am known.
At the same point, it could easily appear that I have had opportunities to begin to establish this home. The last 9 months have been some of the most incredible in my life in regards to feeling at home in a community outside of my family. Getting to know the Zs and the rest of the Bible study group has been such a divine blessing that leaving them and moving on has been more heart wrenching than i would have imagined. The roots that had grown in the short time I spent in Colorado were deeper than I had imagined, and a significant part of me wants to return to that soil.
But for right now, i am led onwards. So you are welcome to journey a long. There are irons in the fire, gas in the car, and a vast array of roads ahead to chose form.
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