This message is especially for the guys from my Youth Group... here are links to the 5 posts I want you guys to read and talk about. Make sure you read them before coming to group and post your own replies... I will have internet in Africa, so don't think I won't see it if no one is replying.
If there aren't any replies showing you guys talked about the posts, we'll just go over them in October when I get back.
September 5th: The Message
September 12th: Love
September 19th: The Choice
September 26th: Fear
October 3rd: Blessed...
Now, you'll notice that on the right side of the screen are three clocks. One lists Everett time (Home), one lists South Africa, and one lists Mauritius time. If you've got a question for me about one of these posts, or if you're looking for a reply, check what time it is where I'm at. I'll do my best to check your replies every Sunday. Remember though, that South Africa is 9 hours ahead of Washington, and Mauritius is 11 hours ahead.
Good luck guys!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Leaving in less than a week...
Barring any unforeseen problems, I should be getting on a plane to go to NYC on Sunday, and from there getting on a plane for Johannesburg on Tuesday morning.
Yep... in 7 days I'll be getting on a South African Airlines plane to fly to Johannesburg for the first part of my mission trip. While I am there, I'll be doing some ministry with Jackie around Springs and Johannesburg. On the 11th the Christ the King Ministries team will be coming to Johannesburg too, and we'll go together to Mauritius on the 14th to work in the city called Flic en Flac, which is on the West Coast of the island.
I would like to thank all the people that gave so generously to support this Mission Trip, every donation was a major blessing. The people who bought fudge or gave me work to do in exchange for a donation, and the people who just gave to bless me... thank you all.
I should have internet in Johannesburg, and I plan on updating this blog while I'm there, and I'm told I should have internet in Flic en Flac as well, so you should be hearing from me while I'm away.
To the guys from my Youth Group, there are five posts right now in the "Message" category, they are the ones on the list I gave you last week. I'll look for your replies to the threads, and hope we'll get into some interesting discussions.
Yep... in 7 days I'll be getting on a South African Airlines plane to fly to Johannesburg for the first part of my mission trip. While I am there, I'll be doing some ministry with Jackie around Springs and Johannesburg. On the 11th the Christ the King Ministries team will be coming to Johannesburg too, and we'll go together to Mauritius on the 14th to work in the city called Flic en Flac, which is on the West Coast of the island.
I would like to thank all the people that gave so generously to support this Mission Trip, every donation was a major blessing. The people who bought fudge or gave me work to do in exchange for a donation, and the people who just gave to bless me... thank you all.
I should have internet in Johannesburg, and I plan on updating this blog while I'm there, and I'm told I should have internet in Flic en Flac as well, so you should be hearing from me while I'm away.
To the guys from my Youth Group, there are five posts right now in the "Message" category, they are the ones on the list I gave you last week. I'll look for your replies to the threads, and hope we'll get into some interesting discussions.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Blessed...
20Looking at his disciples, he said:
"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.23"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
24"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.Luke 6:20-26
Blessed... what does Jesus mean when he says that the poor, hungry, weeping, and hated are blessed? Obviously, these people are not being financially blessed. They are not receiving plenty, nor do they have the favor of men and God.
What Jesus is trying to say is that these people shall be blessed. They shall receive. They shall laugh. Those who are poor, hungry, and weeping now are often tied up in their current circumstances. They will be fed, they will laugh again, because life moves on. Your current circumstances might be horrid, you might be in the valley right now, but you will get through it and move out to the peaks again.
Jesus says that people who are hated for his name's sake are blessed. This beattitude intrigues me. It is the only one of the four that doesn't also carry a future blessing. The poor will possess the kingdom of God, the hungry shall be satisfied, and those who weep shall laugh... but those who are hated for the sake of the Son of Man are simply blessed. I think that this blessing is less immediate, when compared to the others. Hunger, weeping, and poverty are things that you deal with now. They are the stuff of day to day life. Being hated for Christ's sake is less so.
Sure, you might have to deal with someone who hates you for being a Christian every day, but it is not a constant worry. I think that people who are hated for Christ's sake, people hated for their faith, learn to treasure their faith and let it grow and strengthen. Christ promised his followers trials and tribulations that would make them stronger. Being hated as a Christian is one such trial.
The second half of the verse I quoted lists four woes that men can experience. Woe to the rich, the well fed, those who laugh now, and those who are well spoken of by their peers here in the world.
You might think that Christ is listing woes off that contradict the blessings he just pronounced in the first half, but he is not.
Christ is saying that people who are rich now will lose that wealth at some point, either in this life or when they go to meet their Heavenly Father. Christ addresses wealth many times. He frequently told men to sell all they owned, give it to the poor, and follow him. He told his followers that it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.
A quick aside here... Christ did not mean a literal eye of a needle and a camel. At that time, there were two gates on most cities in the region, one that was open during the day, but closed at night, and one that was much smaller but could be opened at any time as needed. This smaller door was about the size of a regular house door, and if a merchant arrived into town late, he had to make his camels kneel and crawl through the doorway, often times having to entirely unload the camel to make it fit through the door. Common slang for that smaller door was "the eye of the needle." Christ was saying that a rich man must get on his knees and crawl to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, maybe even shedding all of his wealth before he can make it into the Kingdom.
Plainly, the wealthy have had their comfort now, and will lose it at some point in the future, and that is why Christ proclaimed woe unto them. I feel that this ties in with the second woe, about those who are well fed now going hungry later. Basically, those who have now will lose it in the future, so woe unto them.
Woe unto those who laugh now, for they shall weep. As I mentioned above, Christ promised trials and tribulations for his followers. People who laugh now, people who are happy and celebrating, will not be doing so when those trials hit. They will hit hard times, and they will weep. It is inevitable that hard times will come along for each of us, and we shall all hit that moment when only weeping fits the situation.
The last woe reflects the last beattitude. Woe unto those who are spoken well of, because that is how your fathers treated the false prophets of the past. Paul speaks about false prophets later in the New Testament, praying that the churches he planted could resist their teachings. There were many false prophets in the Old Testament who tried to lead the Israelites away from God and the path he laid out with the true Prophets.
What is the problem with false prophets? Simply put, they tell people what they want to hear and that makes them very hard to say "no" to, so many people choose to follow them. Many false prophets gather followings of wealthy people and poor, who all do their best to spread the feel good message of their prophet.
Christ was telling his audience that if the people were speaking only praises of them as Christian missionaries, then they were not doing their job properly, they were instead giving a false message, becoming false prophets. The message of Christ is a hard one for many people who haven't heard it before. Christ tells people things they do not want to hear, and tells them that they have to give up their current life to follow after him.
People do not want to hear messages like that.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Fear
For the Lord your God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7
This verse has been branded in my mind for many years now. It has been with me in some of the hardest times of my life, and been with me in the trivial moments. The day I heard my mother had cancer, I prayed this verse over and over. Today when I got my vaccinations to go to Mauritius, I prayed this verse.
It means more than "I am not afraid..." This verse means that God did not intend for me to have fear in my spirit. King David said that God knew him when He formed David in his mother's womb, that He knew David when He knit together his flesh, and that applies to each of us. God knew us as we were forming, he shaped us, building us into the people he wants us to be; and as he was shaping and building us, he designed us with a spirit of power, love and a sound mind... not a spirit of fear.
This isn't to say that God never meant you to have fear. You can be afraid without having a spirit of fear. If you are standing face to face with a lion, and there isn't a plexiglass wall between you and that lion, you should probably have some natural fear in that moment. If you are in a plane that just lost two of its four engines, a bit of fear makes sense.
That said, you can conquer that fear. You can rise up above it and continue on doing what needs to be done.
Even though I walkThis is another Psalm of David, and another verse about fear that has spoken to me for many years. David knew a lot about the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He was a mighty warrior from his days as a shepherd that fought lions and bears to his days as the head of Israel's army.
through the valley of the shadow of death, a]">[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me. Psalm 23:4
In this Psalm, David says that God's rod and staff comfort him. To the modern ear, that doesn't make much sense. Take a moment, and think like a semi-nomadic shepherd, and it will make more sense. The shepherd's staff was the tool he used to guide his sheep. We see them in cartoons with the long hook on the top. Shepherds really used that hook to grab sheep that had gone astray, or to lift a sheep out of a crevasse that it had fallen into. It was the shepherd's rescue tool. The rod, however, was the shepherd's offensive tool. It was a club made of stout, hard, wood, that could be used to bash the head of a predator or a thief.
David is saying that he knows God has the tools both to defend him from threats and to rescue him if he gets into something he can't get himself out of; we have that same assurance. God has the tools to defend us from any threat, and the tools to rescue us should we get into something over our heads. That fact is such a comfort to me. I can keep living my life, trying new things leaping into the void, looking for God's will, knowing that if I jump off a cliff but don't make it to the other side, God can lift me out of that pit and put me back with the other sheep.
Mysterious Ways
Who would have known that 30 years ago the son I was believing God for would not be born until both of his sisters had made their appearance in this world? Each child's birth was a test of faith. And much like Hannah each one was dedicated to the Lord. The adventure has been in watching them grow and mature.
I cannot believe that my son is traveling around the world by himself. I guess there are plenty of people who do this as part of their lives but still a mother's heart has to pray for his safety. (So she doesn't fall into worry!)
His fund raising is almost complete! Another $100 came in today. Given out of sacrifice. It is so humbling and yet I know that God will honor that family.
As you may know, we are having a fund raiser August 29th. We need your support! Our hearts are to send enough money with Jono to sponsor at least 5 Bible students in Mauritius. The address is 7600 Cascade View Drive, Everett. Our church meets in the Boys and Girls Club and that is where the fundraiser will be. Some of the monies raised will also go towards our home missions, so Missions will be the song of the day! There will be live music, Hawai'ian Barbeque, Sno Cones, Cotton Candy, etc. Tickets will be sold at the front door.
If you have any questions email me at debbijohn02@gmail.com
I cannot believe that my son is traveling around the world by himself. I guess there are plenty of people who do this as part of their lives but still a mother's heart has to pray for his safety. (So she doesn't fall into worry!)
His fund raising is almost complete! Another $100 came in today. Given out of sacrifice. It is so humbling and yet I know that God will honor that family.
As you may know, we are having a fund raiser August 29th. We need your support! Our hearts are to send enough money with Jono to sponsor at least 5 Bible students in Mauritius. The address is 7600 Cascade View Drive, Everett. Our church meets in the Boys and Girls Club and that is where the fundraiser will be. Some of the monies raised will also go towards our home missions, so Missions will be the song of the day! There will be live music, Hawai'ian Barbeque, Sno Cones, Cotton Candy, etc. Tickets will be sold at the front door.
If you have any questions email me at debbijohn02@gmail.com
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Choice
There are thousands of choices we make each and every day. What's for breakfast? What will I wear today? Do I leave on time, or will I be late? There are other choices that effect our entire lives. Whom will I marry? Where will I live? What do I believe?
That last one is perhaps the most significant choice you will ever make. What will I believe about the world around me? Which God will I follow? Where will I send my soul after I die?
In the old testament, there is one woman who exemplifies this choice: Ruth.
Her story begins with Naomi. Naomi was a Jewish woman who lived in Judah with her family, but there was a drought in the land, so she and her family moved to a foreign land. In that land, Naomi's sons married local women, and they assimilated as a family. Then things got worse and Naomi's husband and sons died. All of them. That left Naomi and her daughters in law without anyone to support them. Ruth and Orpah were the daughters in law. At that moment, Naomi didn't think she could support these other women, so she told her daughters in law to go home to their own families to find new husbands.
That was when Ruth made her decision.
Ruth was a Moabite, a people that the Israelites had conquered when they left Egypt. She had no reason to love the God of the Israelites. However, she had lived with Naomi and her family for some time and had learned to love them, and through them learned to love their God.
She chose when Naomi told her to go home to her own people that she would now be one of God's children. "Your people will be my people and your God my God." She did not ask God, she did not offer a sacrifice or try to perform any rituals, she simply decided that she would follow God and that he would be her God.
Some people would call her arrogant, audacious, bold... but God honored her. She went home to Judah with Naomi, married a wealthy man, and became one of the ancestors of King David and Jesus Christ. This Moabite, a race God had ordered the Israelite army to crush, was honored above so many and made a part of God's chosen line of Kings. All because she chose to follow God and didn't give anyone else an option about it.
Now, how does this apply to our modern life?
Well, we each have to choose if we will follow God or if we will go back to living our lives outside of his will. God is not going to make us come and join his family, we have to choose to do so. We have to say "I want to follow you, I want you in my life, and I don't want to go back to what I had before."
When we pray that, and ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we are taken back into God's family. We are adopted as sons and daughters of God, made joint heirs with Christ.
It is that simple, really.
That last one is perhaps the most significant choice you will ever make. What will I believe about the world around me? Which God will I follow? Where will I send my soul after I die?
In the old testament, there is one woman who exemplifies this choice: Ruth.
Her story begins with Naomi. Naomi was a Jewish woman who lived in Judah with her family, but there was a drought in the land, so she and her family moved to a foreign land. In that land, Naomi's sons married local women, and they assimilated as a family. Then things got worse and Naomi's husband and sons died. All of them. That left Naomi and her daughters in law without anyone to support them. Ruth and Orpah were the daughters in law. At that moment, Naomi didn't think she could support these other women, so she told her daughters in law to go home to their own families to find new husbands.
That was when Ruth made her decision.
Ruth 1:16-17 16 But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
Ruth was a Moabite, a people that the Israelites had conquered when they left Egypt. She had no reason to love the God of the Israelites. However, she had lived with Naomi and her family for some time and had learned to love them, and through them learned to love their God.
She chose when Naomi told her to go home to her own people that she would now be one of God's children. "Your people will be my people and your God my God." She did not ask God, she did not offer a sacrifice or try to perform any rituals, she simply decided that she would follow God and that he would be her God.
Some people would call her arrogant, audacious, bold... but God honored her. She went home to Judah with Naomi, married a wealthy man, and became one of the ancestors of King David and Jesus Christ. This Moabite, a race God had ordered the Israelite army to crush, was honored above so many and made a part of God's chosen line of Kings. All because she chose to follow God and didn't give anyone else an option about it.
Now, how does this apply to our modern life?
Well, we each have to choose if we will follow God or if we will go back to living our lives outside of his will. God is not going to make us come and join his family, we have to choose to do so. We have to say "I want to follow you, I want you in my life, and I don't want to go back to what I had before."
When we pray that, and ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we are taken back into God's family. We are adopted as sons and daughters of God, made joint heirs with Christ.
It is that simple, really.
Amazing donation!
I'd like to thank all of you for your prayers, God has moved, and someone just donated $1,000 towards my trip to South Africa.
This means I need approximately $60 to finish raising all the money I need for the fixed expenses. I still need to raise spending money for the trip, but that is a much easier task because I set how much I'll be taking myself.
God is good!
This means I need approximately $60 to finish raising all the money I need for the fixed expenses. I still need to raise spending money for the trip, but that is a much easier task because I set how much I'll be taking myself.
God is good!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Love
Matthew 22:37-40 (New International Version)
37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'a]">[a] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'b]">[b] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
The set up for this verse is that the scribes and pharisees were trying to trap Jesus into saying something blasphemous, and instead, he listed off the two greatest commandments: 1) Love God with all you have and 2) Love your neighbor as you love yourself. He goes so far as to say that the entirety of the Law and the Prophets, the whole of the Jewish Bible, rests on these two simple commandments.
How can this be? There are 33 books in the Christian Old Testament, and the Jewish Bible has even more books and commentaries... and Jesus is saying that they can all be summed up into two commandments?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, and your soul...
This commandment is easy to see in the major commandments of the old testament. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me..." "Thou shalt not create any graven images..." "Honor the sabbath and keep it holy..." These commandments are all about how we should relate to God, and they all amount to focusing on him, loving him, giving him our time and our lives.
So, the Christians of old times, and the Jews before them, had a clear blueprint on how to love God, but those of us in modern times have a harder time of it. How can we love God with all of our heart? All of our mind? Our soul?
Well, we can work to spend our time with him. God wants an emotional relationship with us. He is our daddy, our father in heaven, and he wants us to love him like a child loves their earthly father. We should spend time with him, not out of a sense of duty but because we want to spend time with our father. Spending time is more than just coming to church once or twice a week, though that is important. Sunday services are good... we come together to sing praises and to learn about God... but, we need to spend more time than that. How many times a day do we find ourselves sitting there doing nothing?
We can take those times where we have nothing to do and turn our focus to God. Quietly praying, thanking God for our day and our experiences, singing praises or listening to music that helps us focus on him. You don't have to hide yourself in your closet to spend time with God, but that can't hurt.
What about your mind? How do you love God with your mind? By learning about him, studying and researching, going to classes. Many scientists say that the secret to a long life and long memory is continual learning. This is also the secret to life with God. No matter how long we've been a Christian, no matter what role we play in the Church, we should always strive to learn more. Even Pastors need to continue learning by going to classes and conferences, learning from other Christians.
There will never be a point that you know all there is to know about God. You will always be able to learn more. Most young Christians learn the verse "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." and think about it in relation to themselves. It's a verse that speaks to their current situation, and it helps them grow as Christians. Later, they will hear that same verse and think about it as more mature Christians, thinking about how it reflects on their new life and the lives of the people around them.
The entire Bible is like that. Each verse is layered, meaning within meaning. Christ told the disciples that he taught using parables because the crowds were not ready for him to tell them the truths bluntly and directly. New Christians and non-believers still are not ready to hear the truths directly, and so they learn a layer at a time. More mature Christians hear a verse taught to them and learn that next layer of meaning, each time taking a deeper lesson from the verse.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself...
Two key things must be taken from this verse: 1) We have to love our neighbor and 2) we have to love ourselves.
What is love? In this instance, love is a very broad thing. It is almost a restatement of the Golden Rule, that we should treat our neighbor as we would want to be treated ourselves. In all things. If your neighbor needs help with something, give it to them. You should approach them with a smile, treating them kindly. You shouldn't allow yourself to get into a war of accumulation with them... keeping up with the Joneses isn't loving your neighbor.
What about loving yourself? How does Jesus mean that? He means that you need to realize that you have self worth. You are a beloved child of God, blessed not cursed, given life not death. You deserve to be blessed. More than that, you are an heir of God. You are an heir to the throne, to the power, and as such you should act like it.
A Prince doesn't grovel, asking for scrimps and scrapes. A Prince lives his life, expecting to receive that which is his due. You should not be arrogant, but recognizing who you are is not arrogance.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the lost son comes home begging his father to take him back as a slave, and his father lifts him up and restores him as a son. The prodigal never lost his status as his father's son, he just lost his own self worth. We need to remember that. We are always children of the living God, no matter what we've done, what our lives are like, we are always children of God.
Beyond that, we need to recognize that we are not the only Princes. Everyone else is also a Child of God. Everyone else is a beloved heir of God. If you find yourself tempted to judge someone else's behavior, their life, or the condition of their soul, remember that those people are also Princes and Princesses. They are also heirs to God's throne. This is especially important when we're tempted to judge other Christians. They are doing their best to live their lives by God's word, just like we are.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The Message...
I want to share with you what is on my heart for Mauritius, for South Africa, for the youth, for everyone really. This is what I feel called to preach, and it is the message I will be giving as often as I can, wherever I can.
God wants to bless you.
That's a bit short, and even with an interpreter that won't take up the whole speaking time... so let's go into detail.
What do I mean, that God wants to bless you? I mean that just like it says in Jeremiah, God has plans to bless you with a future and a hope, not to curse you. His plans for you are of peace. If anyone ever tells you that God gave you a disease to teach you a lesson, if they tell you that God made you live in poverty, or that God let your loved one die so you could grow from it, I am here to tell you that they are wrong.
You are his child, you are his beloved son, his wonderful daughter, why would he do horrible things to you? Jesus tells us a parable, one of the shorter ones in fact, in which he asks the crowd around him "which of you are fathers?" When the fathers in the crowd raise their hands to answer, he asks them if your son asked you for some bread, would you give him a rock; if he asked for a fish, would you give him a snake; if he asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion?
The obvious answer to those questions is no. A loving father would not treat his child that way. Sure, he might tease or joke, but he would not earnestly give such horribly things to a child who wanted something to eat.
Jesus follows that up by saying "if you being evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more so your Heavenly Father?"
Now, Jesus wasn't calling those men that day particularly evil. They weren't major sinners about to be condemned. These men were just everyday, average men who had come to listen to the teacher. The "evil" Jesus is calling out is simply that they, like all of us, are born into the world and have grown up in it. We are not pure and good, like God. We have sin, have sinned, and will sin again. But even though we are sinful creatures, we still know how to give good things to our children.
How much more so, our Heavenly Father?
It's a big question. God is pure, he is good, he is love, he is light, he is that he is, he is the alpha and omega... and he is our Father. If we ask him for a blessing, he isn't going to curse us. If we ask for food, and have faith that he will give it, we will receive it. If we ask for Healing and have faith that we will be made whole, we will be Healed.
God's plans for us are plans of a future, of peace, and of hope. If the path you're on right now doesn't lead to hope, doesn't have a future sitting at the end of it, and isn't a plan that points towards peace, then it's not God's path for your life.
That said, you can find God wherever you are. If you're living a hopeless life full of violence and pain, God is there waiting to help you and bless you. If you're lying in a hospital bed, hurting more with every breath, God is there. If you're living your life, stuck in a rut never growing nor changing, just living each day the same as the day that came before it, God is there.
I am not a father, myself, but I do have little siblings who are 16 and 18 years younger than me. I was there when my little sister took her first steps, said her first words, and fell that first time. I sat there watching as my little brother learned how to leap from one piece of furniture to another. For both of them, I had to learn how to sit back and let them try, let them fail, and wait for them to ask me for help.
God is sitting there, watching us learn to walk, talk, run and jump on our own. He's waiting for us to need his help, waiting for us to call out to him. Just like when a toddler is learning to walk, he lets us try to lift ourselves up. He lets us push our limits and grow for ourselves. If he set us on our feet, held our hands, and kept us from ever falling or bruising ourselves, we would never learn to do it on our own.
One of my mother's favorite stories to tell is about my older sister. When she was a toddler, she had so many loving adults around her that all she had to do was pout and someone would pick her up and take her to whatever it was she wanted. Eventually, my sister had to learn to walk on her own, to get herself to the things she wanted, but because of all the people who did it for her, she took much longer to learn that lesson than other children.
We could sit here and pout, asking God to take care of every little detail of our lives, but that would be limiting ourselves to an eternal infancy. We would never learn to walk on our own, and we would never make it to the future that God has planned for us.
The first step is calling out to our Father, just like the baby learning to crawl. We call out to God, and thank him for sending Jesus as the final sacrifice for our sins; thank him that we don't need to pay for our own sins anymore, and that all sins past, present, and future are now paid. We have to ask him to come into our lives as our lord and savior, and help us to live the way God wants us to, help us to learn to walk in his ways, and help us to become the people God has destined us to be.
That first step, becoming a Christian by accepting Christ as your savior, as your lord, is like a baby levering themselves onto their feet and reaching for their parent's hand to steady themselves. Those first steps are guided, protected, cherished. Have you ever watched a parent helping their baby learn to walk? That is God in those moments when you call out to him.
As you dig deeper, learning and growing, reading your bible, going to church, meeting more Christians, you learn to take steps on your own. You learn about your faith, you learn about how God intended you to live, and you begin living that way, taking steps down the path God has planned for you. Once you're walking on your own, you're still checking in with God, still coming to him with the details of your life, still relying on him for all those things only a father can do.
Eventually, you will help other new Christians learn to walk. You'll raise your own children as Christians, you'll teach a Bible Study at church, or you'll become a Pastor, and it will be your job to help baby Christians learn those first steps with God.
God wants to bless you.
That's a bit short, and even with an interpreter that won't take up the whole speaking time... so let's go into detail.
What do I mean, that God wants to bless you? I mean that just like it says in Jeremiah, God has plans to bless you with a future and a hope, not to curse you. His plans for you are of peace. If anyone ever tells you that God gave you a disease to teach you a lesson, if they tell you that God made you live in poverty, or that God let your loved one die so you could grow from it, I am here to tell you that they are wrong.
You are his child, you are his beloved son, his wonderful daughter, why would he do horrible things to you? Jesus tells us a parable, one of the shorter ones in fact, in which he asks the crowd around him "which of you are fathers?" When the fathers in the crowd raise their hands to answer, he asks them if your son asked you for some bread, would you give him a rock; if he asked for a fish, would you give him a snake; if he asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion?
The obvious answer to those questions is no. A loving father would not treat his child that way. Sure, he might tease or joke, but he would not earnestly give such horribly things to a child who wanted something to eat.
Jesus follows that up by saying "if you being evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more so your Heavenly Father?"
Now, Jesus wasn't calling those men that day particularly evil. They weren't major sinners about to be condemned. These men were just everyday, average men who had come to listen to the teacher. The "evil" Jesus is calling out is simply that they, like all of us, are born into the world and have grown up in it. We are not pure and good, like God. We have sin, have sinned, and will sin again. But even though we are sinful creatures, we still know how to give good things to our children.
How much more so, our Heavenly Father?
It's a big question. God is pure, he is good, he is love, he is light, he is that he is, he is the alpha and omega... and he is our Father. If we ask him for a blessing, he isn't going to curse us. If we ask for food, and have faith that he will give it, we will receive it. If we ask for Healing and have faith that we will be made whole, we will be Healed.
God's plans for us are plans of a future, of peace, and of hope. If the path you're on right now doesn't lead to hope, doesn't have a future sitting at the end of it, and isn't a plan that points towards peace, then it's not God's path for your life.
That said, you can find God wherever you are. If you're living a hopeless life full of violence and pain, God is there waiting to help you and bless you. If you're lying in a hospital bed, hurting more with every breath, God is there. If you're living your life, stuck in a rut never growing nor changing, just living each day the same as the day that came before it, God is there.
I am not a father, myself, but I do have little siblings who are 16 and 18 years younger than me. I was there when my little sister took her first steps, said her first words, and fell that first time. I sat there watching as my little brother learned how to leap from one piece of furniture to another. For both of them, I had to learn how to sit back and let them try, let them fail, and wait for them to ask me for help.
God is sitting there, watching us learn to walk, talk, run and jump on our own. He's waiting for us to need his help, waiting for us to call out to him. Just like when a toddler is learning to walk, he lets us try to lift ourselves up. He lets us push our limits and grow for ourselves. If he set us on our feet, held our hands, and kept us from ever falling or bruising ourselves, we would never learn to do it on our own.
One of my mother's favorite stories to tell is about my older sister. When she was a toddler, she had so many loving adults around her that all she had to do was pout and someone would pick her up and take her to whatever it was she wanted. Eventually, my sister had to learn to walk on her own, to get herself to the things she wanted, but because of all the people who did it for her, she took much longer to learn that lesson than other children.
We could sit here and pout, asking God to take care of every little detail of our lives, but that would be limiting ourselves to an eternal infancy. We would never learn to walk on our own, and we would never make it to the future that God has planned for us.
The first step is calling out to our Father, just like the baby learning to crawl. We call out to God, and thank him for sending Jesus as the final sacrifice for our sins; thank him that we don't need to pay for our own sins anymore, and that all sins past, present, and future are now paid. We have to ask him to come into our lives as our lord and savior, and help us to live the way God wants us to, help us to learn to walk in his ways, and help us to become the people God has destined us to be.
That first step, becoming a Christian by accepting Christ as your savior, as your lord, is like a baby levering themselves onto their feet and reaching for their parent's hand to steady themselves. Those first steps are guided, protected, cherished. Have you ever watched a parent helping their baby learn to walk? That is God in those moments when you call out to him.
As you dig deeper, learning and growing, reading your bible, going to church, meeting more Christians, you learn to take steps on your own. You learn about your faith, you learn about how God intended you to live, and you begin living that way, taking steps down the path God has planned for you. Once you're walking on your own, you're still checking in with God, still coming to him with the details of your life, still relying on him for all those things only a father can do.
Eventually, you will help other new Christians learn to walk. You'll raise your own children as Christians, you'll teach a Bible Study at church, or you'll become a Pastor, and it will be your job to help baby Christians learn those first steps with God.
Friday, August 7, 2009
It's been a while, dear blog...
I realized that I've been neglecting to post to this blog all the activities and things that have been going on with getting to Africa.
Every Saturday in July I was out with Yvonne, Carey, Joel, Cecilia and a few other volunteers washing cars in Smokey Point, and we'll continue doing that in August. We're at the Discount Tires near Costco and Kmart. To get your car washed, all we ask is a Donation... so whatever you feel the job is worth. Some folks have paid $5, $8, or even $40... the $40 cars were usually just getting back from a road trip, but it was worth it.
I'm currently working with my church to put on a concert/BBQ at the Boys and Girls Club at Lions Park in Everett, on August 29th. It will be my last push before getting on the plane and going to Africa. We're not selling tickets, but rather will be accepting donations and selling the BBQ Chicken. It won't
be traditional American BBQ, but rather Teriyaki style chicken with rice.
Right now, I have about $700 in the bank and only need another $500 to purchase my ticket to South Africa. After that, I'll need to raise $750 for my expenses (room and board, gas, etc.) That's right, I'm $1,250 away from being done fund raising! Please keep praying for me, especially the BBQ/Concert, that the event would raise all the money I need and that it would also serve as a way to bless Holy Ghost Revival Church and to spread the good news here in our community, even as we work to send me across the globe.
Every Saturday in July I was out with Yvonne, Carey, Joel, Cecilia and a few other volunteers washing cars in Smokey Point, and we'll continue doing that in August. We're at the Discount Tires near Costco and Kmart. To get your car washed, all we ask is a Donation... so whatever you feel the job is worth. Some folks have paid $5, $8, or even $40... the $40 cars were usually just getting back from a road trip, but it was worth it.
I'm currently working with my church to put on a concert/BBQ at the Boys and Girls Club at Lions Park in Everett, on August 29th. It will be my last push before getting on the plane and going to Africa. We're not selling tickets, but rather will be accepting donations and selling the BBQ Chicken. It won't
be traditional American BBQ, but rather Teriyaki style chicken with rice.Right now, I have about $700 in the bank and only need another $500 to purchase my ticket to South Africa. After that, I'll need to raise $750 for my expenses (room and board, gas, etc.) That's right, I'm $1,250 away from being done fund raising! Please keep praying for me, especially the BBQ/Concert, that the event would raise all the money I need and that it would also serve as a way to bless Holy Ghost Revival Church and to spread the good news here in our community, even as we work to send me across the globe.
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