Thanksgiving day

Alright,

its been a while since I've written (to myself). Not much has been going on. i just got back from Louisiana a few days ago. I'll post some pics soon. Have been doing ok, kind of up and down, discouraged with myself mostly...lack of personal discipline, bad decisions, needing God more yet seeking him less, wasting time, etc.

Had a great conversation with Bruce and Carole Winter (elder from church) at their house; i was there something like 5 hours. We talked about a lot of stuff...suffering, belief in God, brokenness and how Midland, MI on the surface seems like such a great place but really there is a lot of broken families, my internship, church life, etc. I learn a lot from them, but mostly I just really appreciate having their love and encouragement. They've made me really feel like part of their family - I guess I need that a lot, personally. Not just formal mentoring or classroom learning but being a part of someone's life, being included in their personal life, and receiving their love, encouragement, and life experience as their 'share and tell.'

Here's a great book I would recommend: Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. By Lesslie Newbigin. I really enjoy the book, he's a great writer, a kind of more-scholarly Francis Schaeffer. However, for as much as I read these books on Christian WV (worldview), philosophy, pomo (postmodern) theology, etc... I do not find it really grows my faith. Faith comes from something else, oh that I could 'figure out' faith. Oh that it wasn't just a given thing from God, or something like that. Oh, for more humility and brokenness and not treating life as a game, or a ride. I need more of God...through prayer, through the Word, through experience.

Well, that's not much, but its enough for now. How strange to journal in a public place. But who will really read this? It sure makes you think about what you say, at the least.

Questions of the day: Is the question, "What faith tradition is the true/best tradition?" a legitimate question? If the question is legitimate the second question is, Is there any way of answering that question, realizing that all tradition-judging criteria are rooted themselves in another tradition, subject to other criteria judgement?

REAL Prayer Blog

REAL Prayer Blog

This is our church group's prayer blog. Check it out and pray with us!

Hear My Cry, Oh God!

Psalm 61 says:

"Hear my cry, O God,
listen to my prayer;
from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I,
for you have been a strong tower
agains the enemy."

Those are good words for bad times. The last few days have been really stressfull; sometimes I feel all wound up inside, needing to be unraveled or undone - too much anxiety, stress, dissapointment (with myself), etc...and too much introspection. Jeff Andridge told me a while ago, "Instrospection is like salt...a little is good, but too much ruins you." How true. Do you ever feel trapped within yourself, like you'd love to just be released from the constant self-awareness, preocupation, or feelings of depression caused by looking on the inside? Sometimes its just feels impossible to look out and see God, see Christ, and hope.

Today we're taking off for Louisiana, and thank the Lord, I woke up with a positive attitude and a heart of thanks. I definately had to push away some negative thoughts, but today started much better than the last week has been. It feel that it has been grace in a time of need.

Another random thought: "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" Are we as Christians called to the ministry of taste-testing? Is seems like we are called to taste the goodness of God - like a fine wine, or a really good cheese, or some great ribs. And then we're called to be like those wineries that do taste-testing...helping people taste a bit of the presence of God and crave for more. The interesting thing....if we are not tasting the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, what words of life to we have to speak to those around us? What language of love and of fullness can we speak into the souls of our friends and family and co-workers?

Whoever you are, whenever you read this, may Jesus Christ fill you with his peace and grace today. May you have a moment of rest in his presence, and may your soul taste his goodness and love.

WWII Photo...

i forget what city this overlooks, but what a contrast. Check out the devastation in the first photo. It was taken after the bombing of the German city shown. WWII....what an incredible aweful, enlightening historical event. Just think - in only happened 60 years ago! Do you think that modernity, or modernization of our world civilization, keeps us from violence? Think about 9/11. Think about the fact that the Rowanda genocide occured in the 90's. And consider this stat: First of all, think of the # of people killed on 9/11. Times that by 2.5. That is how many people died in Rowanda. Daily. For 100 days straight. Killed primarily by macheties and automatic weapons. THAT is almost unbelievable. Over 800,000 Tutsis died at a rate that was three times faster than Hitler was at "exterminating" the Jewish people of Europe.

Think about that fact that whatever enabled Hitler and the Natzis to do what they did, and whatever enables so many people to follow him "blindly," and whatever implused the Japanese to slaughter 300,000 Chinese in just a few weeks in "the Raping of Nanking," and whatever part of 'humanness' allowed for the occurance of the Cambodian killing fields, the Chinese "Cultural Revolution," the Soviet Gulag, the current oppression (genocide?) in Sudan, the Abu Ghraib prisioni treatment, the Parisian riots, and thousands of other cases of hatred, oppression, violence, etc...whatever allowed for all of that to happen....is in us.

To quote Os Guiness in his book Unspeakable (where I've pulled most of these stats), "What does it say of us as human beings that the people who do these things are hte same species as we are?" What does it say to us, that whatever evil flowed from people's calloused, numbed hearts in these instances of violence and oppression is also able to flow from my and your heart. We are human, just as any other human. And just as capable of hatred, rape, murder, vengeance, and blinded embittered ruthlessness towards fellow humans. Francis Schaeffer taught that humans are a strange mix of a great nobleness and tragic depravity. What we need is a path toward stopping, reducing, irradicating this evil that lives inside of us. And I do not believe that any government-subsidized program, any education system, or any propoganda of self-help will do it. We are left quite helpless without some help from without. And yet, the Jewish and Christian Scriptures teach that all of reality was created by a personal God who is love and justice and holiness, that all of reality has become corrupt due to us having 'rebelled' (notice the language of relationship) against our creator, and that God has entered the very broken reality that he originally created to be light and truth and lead us back to our Father, help us be changed from the inside out by his Spirit, and lead us towards real life.

What a great story found in the Scriptures. If it is true, what great hope we have! And if it is not believed by the world, what an ultimately hopeless reality it will continue to live and experience. So we are called to walk as pilgrims, as lights of truth and love, in a world without hope and with much dispair and evil. 

Katrina Relief Team

This Thursday night I am heading down to Louisiana with a group of 9 other people, to help out with the relief effort. With all the details of organizing such a trip, its easy to forget temporarily the reasons that I am going down. I am slowly "warming up" to the reality of being down there and what we will experience. I'm sure it will be a very eye-opening experience. I pray that we will be of some service and encouragement to the community down in Covington, LA.

The website of the church we will be serving through is: www. trinitychurchonline.org. Check it out; they have two blogs on the church's situation and their needs.

Pray for us: that we would faithfully serve, have attitudes that please God, and glorify him through our love and selflessness.