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Thursday, January 29, 2009

How Much More Do You Have For Me God???

I talk a lot about Love. The importance of it. I don't know, it has just kind of become something I have become rather passionate about. If you are reading this then I assume that you have heard that my Dad has been in the hospital suffering from anything from a bladder infection to a heart attack. Love has just been something God has been reminding me of lately, and I am just now starting to see his full purpose in telling me this.

My family, well, we have been through a lot. My dad had quadruple bypass surgery when I was in the third grade. That same year there was a hostage situation that took place down the road from my house. That had a rather dramatic effect in my life. I was later diagnosed with depression. Not exactly the thing you want to be while in the third grade, depressed, and I would never wish such a thing on any child. Anyways, things never really got any better. A good time for my family was usually defined by going a month without having anyone in the hospital. Needless to say it rarely happened. Sinus surgeries, knee surgeries, "terminal illness", more surgeries, plenty of stitches and concussions to go around resulted in pushing my family further and further apart.

Where am I going with this is my family has lost the love that families are suppose to have. I know now, as I remind myself of what James wrote, that this is a time to rejoice. It is the testing of my faith and I must persevere. I would like to add to that, hold my family together. The last couple of days it has just been the three boys, me and my two brothers. I have seen countless times how the family comes together in a time of crisis but never realized that we are divided in the peaceful times. Life is tough, I'll give it that. But I'm not going to fold. We must persevere, all of us, anytime we go through crap just remember what James wrote in his first chapter.

Love will set us free, as Brett Dennen says. I know it will.

Pray for my family as we go through this hard time. I just found out some more bad news today, another page in a whole new chapter in this life. Or as John Donne writes.

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume, when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators: some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation; and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

I really like that analogy because it offers hope. I use to think that heaven will be somewhat boring, you know, just "worshiping God" the whole time for the rest of eternity. However now I see that it will be great, a feast, a time to share stories and commune with one another. I can't wait to get there and hear stories from Paul about his missions, to hear Elisha talk about what it was like to be the only person to never die, and to here Davids stories about his run from Saul. Who knows what we are going to hear when we get to heaven, I just can't wait.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Love For The Wolves...

We will wear compassion,
We will wear it on our chests,
and sing with love at our throats
like a child, it's all I know.
-As Cities Burn

A child knows a few things.

They know who they belong to, who are their parents.
They know that they are loved and adored by most who see them.
They know what they like and what they don't like.
They love life and live it.
Among other things these three seem to sum most of it up.

Christ, throughout the New Testament, refers to us by several names. Brides, Sheep, even at times Goats. However the most appealing name he calls us by is Children. We are the children of the Father. Nothing more and nothing less is asked of us but to be His children.

The list above states a lot of what we are called to be like as Christians.
We are to know who we come from and to be proud that we are children of The Most High.
We are to know that we are loved, because he made the ultimate sacrifice for us.
We are to know what is good and what is bad, what we should approve of and what we shouldn't, what we should like and what we should dislike.

More importantly though we are called to love. Everyone, not just our fellow church goers. Not just our friends at school. And not just those who are in our close circle of peers. Everyone. That means the kid in your history class who makes bad jokes about you. The homeless guy sitting on the street. The people in the car in front of you who have to pull over because of car problems. Even those who persecute you. Show them love. I say this not just to you but also to myself.

I often struggle with loving. In fact, at times I would much rather just sit back and be hateful, not care, and to not invest myself. Wouldn't it be so much easier that way? It would. But that is not what we are called to do as children of God.

Luke 10:2-3
These were His instructions to them: "The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into his fields. Now go and remember that I am sending you out as lambs among wolves.

The truth is that life might be easier doing the things of the world, it may not. I know that me saying this is not anything that you have not heard but it is simple and to the point.

LOVE

That is what we are called to do, among the wolves, love.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Quotes from Enders Game...

-Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.

-"There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you."

-"Human beings are free except when humanity needs them."

-"Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive."
"That's a lie."
"No. It's just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war."

-He was a soldier, and if anyone had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn't have known what they meant.

-Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.

-"Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth."

-"Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it."

-"I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it."

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

A Toast To The New Year and All It's Mysteries...

So this weekend I went to Gatlinburg with my youth group. With the mix of Family Force 5, Shane and Shane, Matt McCoy, an illusionist, a comedian, a great speaker, great classes, and amazing fellowship with friends proved TCTC to be a great trip. I had a great time and grew even closer to my God.

We were debriefing Saturday night, going around sharing how God spoke to us that day when someone ended up confessing that they think they were just saved that day. We prayed over him and everyone went to bed. Well, not really. Some of the guys stayed up in my room talking about baptism. Some how it turned into a debate over whether or not baptism is necessary in order to inherit The Kingdom.

The debate threw me at first cause I had never really thought about how important it really is. I was raised in the church and was baptized at a very young age. An age in which you don't really give much thought about how important it is cause you are just doing it because you think it is the right thing to do. I decided by the end that it is very important that you do get baptized.

I think that it is a step that you take during the act of repentance. It is one of the final steps you take in saying "Here I am father, clean of my past and ready for my future" of course the last step is living your life fully devoted to Jesus.

I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. -Matthew 3:11

That is all I need to know to make my decision. Baptism is (in my eyes) a necessary step in becoming a saved christian. I don't know about all of the hypothetical "what if" scenarios, but then again that judgement or any judgement for that matter isn't up to me.