Lent 2012

So this year I once again have been observing Lent. In the past few years I've given up Coke or Chick-fil-A but this year I decided to give up biting my finger nails. To give you some background, I've bitten my fingernails as long as I can remember. In fact, I don't ever remember using clippers on my fingernails. Now that I'm a few weeks into it here are some of my thoughts;

This has been way harder than I could have imagined. I used to bite them without thinking about it. I bite them when I'm worried, bored, hungry, tired, as you can see I used to always bite them! I've appreciated this difficulty for a number of reasons.

First, it serves as a constant reminder of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. As I'm thinking about biting them, I've been reminded of our faithful and perfect High Priest who never sinned (Hebrews 4:15).

Second, it's also reminded me that the temptations we face in life are constantly present, real, and crouching at the door. I want to grow to be aware of sin in my life and the temptation to fall into it with the same cognizant awareness that I have sought to have with this.

Third, I've noticed how well I can do in spurts and how quickly it can end. I loved this reminder the other day as it once again reminded me of the seriousness with which I should approach sin and how slippery that slope can be.

I'll try to post pictures before Easter to show my progress!

Back from Blogger Sabbatical

Let me start off by apologizing about my break. I must admit, I got overwhelmed with school towards the end of the year with school and work and had to set blogging aside. Here's how the year ended;

• Missed my goal of 3 A's in Greek by one (factoring in the DTS grading scale)
• Nearly got Hudson to do a Packers b-day party but a stomach bug ended that dream for both of us.
• Taught Athan to say "Ma-ma" first, only to have him get stuck saying "Da-da" for the next three months.
• Decorated our apartment with Christmas lights that would remind you of a college apartment.
• Experienced a Texas winter filled with two days below freezing and Mother Nature teasing us of snow with frozen dew.
• 2012 started with a great dodgeball game between me and the boys. I actually think I lost.
• I just translated Genesis 1:1-8 from Hebrew to English, so yeah I'm pretty excited about Hebrew.

Moving forward, I'm going to keep the weekly blog goal with blogs about family, ministry, and theological observations. See you next week!

Renewed Appetite

This year my devotional time has consisted of heavy doses of the Old Testament. I've read some in the epistles (mostly in Greek!), but purposefully took a break from the Gospels. I wanted to take a break from them for a short time before coming back to them later in the year. During this break I've noticed a yearning in my soul for Jesus. I've loved my time of reading in the Old Testament and the principles and nuggets of God's grace I've found in those books, but I longed for the person of Christ. Jen and I are starting to read through the gospel of Mark together. As I read the 1st chapter recently, I didn't look at it through stale lenses of recalling what he does next and having my mind wander, but excitedly considered what this all must have been like for the Son of God to come to earth? Why on earth He called men to be his apostles (when rocks or clouds would have done the trick just fine)? Impressed by His compassion and His sense of purpose as the Light that would shine in a dark and desperate place. The break was healthy as it reminded me what drew me to Jesus in the first place.

This isn't the first time I've purposefully taken a break from a portion of Scripture, I've done it with the Law or Psalms before, but it is the first time I've done it with the Gospels. Sometimes as Christians we get too routine in reading a chapter in the Old Testament, one in the gospels, one in the epistles, and a psalm everyday or some other "system" that we or others have manufactured. In doing so I've experienced a lack of enthusiasm and excitement for God's Word as it just becomes a habit and not about the discovery of God. If this is where you are, just reading because that's what you do, day in and day out, then I would encourage you to take a "Sabbath" or rest from a section of God's Word. Don't put it aside altogether! I think what you'll find is a longing for the truths from that section of Scripture and an excitement as your return to rediscover those truths and find new truths you've never seen before.

Feelings vs. Faithfulness

Over the years, I've had the pleasure to get to work with a number of college students who have volunteered in the student ministry where I served as youth pastor. During that time I like to think I was able to impart sound Biblical advice to them and took a small role in their continual growth with the Lord. It never failed that sometime in our times of talking that they would open up to me about where they were with the Lord.

Many of them confessed with concern that they were not feeling the way they had when they first got to college, or got involved with our church. In some ways what they wanted was to know how to get "it" back, or reassurance that they were okay. I identified with their feelings and worries because years before they went through this feeling of a spiritual valley, I also had the same experience with the same concerns that they expressed to me. My hunch is that this is something that is much more broad among Christians than what I've witnessed, but is a truth of many of our stories with the Lord.

Sadly, too often in Christian circles weight is put on how we "feel" in our relationship with the Lord. Buzzwords like passion, experience, and zeal lead people to think that spiritual maturity is reflected mostly by excitement and enthusiasm. To say it another way, Christians begin to think that their walk with the Lord must be characterized by these feelings otherwise it isn't being lived out completely.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't have a passion for Jesus Christ, that our emotions shouldn't be displaying our love and gratitude to Him, or that there shouldn't be excitement as we learn more about Him. The Great Commandment teaches that we are to love the Lord with all of our being, including our emotions. What I am saying is that we need to think logically about our feelings being a barometer for our spiritual state.

Its logical that we will experience times when we are growing, learning, and maturing at a quick rate that causes us to feel more close and in step with the Lord. But as with anything you can't keep that pace up. When you begin a new book often its easy to read quickly through the first few chapters, but it becomes slow moving as you continue through that same book. Why? Because you've heard some of these points now, its not as cutting edge or exciting the fourth time the authors referenced the same point. In the same way, our relationship with the Lord is a walk and a process. There will be periods where we feel close to the Lord, others where we don't.

This is where faithfulness comes in. Paul states, "It is required of stewards that one be found faithful," in 1 Cor. 4:2. In other words, a person who desires to be a servant of Christ, or a minister of the gospel they have to be faithful or trustworthy. Notice the requirement is not to have that passion for Christ, that feeling in your gut, or anything else related to emotion. Instead the requirement is very tangible, its something that can be seen, practiced, even measured, its faithfulness. Faithfulness is remaining true to the Lord Jesus and walking in obedience to God's Word. Faithfulness is determined not in days or weeks, but in years and decades. Faithfulness pushes through difficulties and dry periods, and flourishes at times of growth and development. Faithfulness isn't determined by passion, feelings, but is based on obedience and discipline.

For many of us its easy to love the Lord and be obedient to His Word when we feel close to Him, when we are learning and growing. The challenge we face as followers of Christ is to love Christ by obeying His Word in the dry seasons when we don't feel like we are growing or learning like we did before. That is the test of faithfulness and the example that Jesus has shown to us. Find comfort in these words, "even when we are faithless, He remains faithful."

Step #1-Big Worries Small Feats

Over the next few weeks I'll be documenting this move to Fort Worth and all of the ways the Lord has provided and met our needs in ways that left us speechless. The purpose is twofold, first its a way for me to remember God's goodness in the midst of a stressful time with so much unknown. Second, I hope it serves as an encouragement to others as they face challenges or concerns in their own lives.

Going into the move, the biggest worry I had was selling our home. It was a wonderful house that we loved and had put multiple hours of labor into improving. Despite those improvements it was going to remain a 2 bedroom house, which is not ideal. It worked for us but as I found, was an immediate turnoff for a number of potential buyers.

We decided to try to sell it ourselves, or at least try for a few weeks and see if we could do it without a realtor. We weren't going to make much on it and knew that going in, but my biggest nightmare was having a mortgage in June, about to leave a perfectly good job, for a time when I'll be going back to being a student with no salary. I remember going to a seminar during this process where a guy talked about selling his house in a day. I sat in the corner and thought to myself, "That's great that the Lord did that for you, but what about the rest of us?" That night Jen and I started nightly praying for this move and the sale of our home primarily. The monday of Spring Break, three weeks after putting our house on the market, we signed with a realtor. It was a friend of ours from church who had helped us buy the house. The next day I left on our youth ski trip and Jen went to Tulsa to stay with her parents. On that day our realtor showed our house. On Thursday, while we were both still gone, that couple made an offer and we accepted. Did I mention they wanted to pay cash and let us pick the closing date?

What I learned from this experience was just how goofy I look when I question or doubt the Lord. It wasn't a day, but selling our house in three weeks in this market is the hand of God at work. The Lord used this experience as a reminder of just how easy he can answer my biggest worries and concerns. I'm reminded of Nahum 1:3, "His way is in the whirlwind and the storms and the clouds are the dust of His feet". That which we view as so great and powerful is dust before the Lord. The God we worship is much more powerful than we can imagine, much wiser than we can comprehend and is working in a way that is good for us. Secondly, I learned just how sweet communal prayer is when its for specific requests. Through this entire experience Jen and I have prayed specifically and been amazed as the Lord has answered swiftly and abundantly.

Next I'll look at Step #2-Hospitality at its Finest

Experiencing Life Together

There's a great line towards the end of the movie, Hook after Peter Pan and the Lost Boys had defeated Captain Hook and the Pirates, and saved Peter's children. Peter is heading back to the real world and is flying up in the air as the Lost Boys are watching him leave likely for the last time, yet they smile as they watch their leader and friend leave and one boy simply says, "Now that was a great adventure." I'm sure the Lost Boys were sad to see him leave, but at the same time they weren't thinking about their loss, they were considering instead what they had just experienced together.

The past two weeks have been a bitter sweet time for my family and I. We are in the process of relocating to Dallas and leaving a church where I have been for over ten years. I've been the Youth Pastor for the last six years and have thoroughly enjoyed this time in our lives. People have asked if I was sad, I think some of the students may have been disappointed that I haven't cried about them, but certainly this doesn't mean that we haven't been sad to go. Some time ago, before I announced to the kids that we would be leaving I prayed that the Lord would allow me to enjoy the time I have with them, that instead of focusing on how difficult it would be to leave, we would be able to remember with fondness the great adventure we have just experienced together.

It would be impossible to mention every student or every memory that has made an impact in my life. The truth is in so many ways I have been effected, challenged, and encouraged by their testimony and by their ministry to me. I will always remember the times we witnessed God's marvelous creation on a ski trip, or served alongside each other on a mission trip. I will cherish the times we delved into the depths of God's Word to seek answers to some of life's most difficult questions or played volleyball well past our bed time (or at least mine!) Students often get a bad wrap, as if you just babysit them and can't deal with the meat of Scripture with them. In my experience our students were always open about their questions, and quick to look for answers. They visited us at the hospital for the birth of our sons, they wept with us when we lost Eliot. We have rejoiced with them as they won games, made homecoming, or graduated, and wept with them as they lost loved ones, or faced other disappointments in life.

My prayer for them as they move forward is much like what I've always wanted for them, that they would take ownership of their faith, not coming or believing simply because they feel they were expected, but because they are pursuing a relationship with the Lord on their own. Secondly, I've prayed for unity among the group. Unity stands in contrast to what we see throughout culture, I've always wanted the youth to be a united group of students who treated each other as family. Finally, I pray that they move forward in their faith and in their lives now that we have left to experience new and exciting adventures with the Lord as their guide, and others as their partners and leaders.

What's different about the Peter Pan/Lost Boy connection is that the only thing that united them was their friendship and the experiences they shared together. As time went by their experiences and friendship would wain because it had been so long since they had been united by their experiences. For us as Christians, we have far more in common, or in union with each other than just friendship and experiences. Jen and I will always be connected to those students who came through the "Youth House" between 2005-2011 because we are members of one body (1 Cor. 12), indwelt by one Spirit, following one Lord (Eph. 4:4-6). In God's sovereign plan He brought Jen and I to that place and has now led us away and it was a time we will never forget. We will always love those students and the time we shared with them because we experienced a great adventure together and that's something we'll never forget...

I'll share more about this move and God's great goodness manifested through His servants in the upcoming weeks, but for now I have to get back to getting ready!

Love does not seek its own

I'm planning to do some more posting on how the Lord has gone before us (as I had mentioned in my previous post) in about 2 weeks, I want to finish the move before I reflect in this format about God's blessings and answers to prayer during this time of transition. Until then I've got another reflection for you that is a late Mother's Day reflection...

Recently, as I've been reading through 1 Kings I stumbled across a familiar story. I can remember hearing a story of Solomon's great wisdom as a kid in Sunday School and even as a small child you recognize that he was extraordinarily wise. The story goes that two women shared a home, both had children days apart, but sadly one woman had rolled over on her baby in the night. She awoke and found her child dead, and in a moment of panic quietly switched her dead baby with the other woman's live child. The two women came before Solomon both claiming the live child as their own. Solomon asked for a sword and stated that each woman would get half. The true mother quickly cried out, "Give the son to the other woman," while the other woman swept away in grief liked that the living son would be divided for I'm sure she thought, "if I can't have my son, neither should she have hers." Solomon quickly identifies the woman who sought to preserve the child's life as the true mother.

Even a casual reader has to recognize wisdom in the young King Solomon, but as I read it this time I asked the question, why? What is so wise about Solomon's response? What does he recognize in the mother's response?

Solomon recognizes that a mother, the one who selflessly cares, provides, and nurtures their child will seek the best for their child even if the situation demands that the best is not with them. A mother's love was put to the test in Solomon's response, does the mother love her child enough to let the child go so that he can live, or will the mother demand that the child must stay with her even if its to the child's detriment?

Love does not seek its own (1 Cor. 13:5), but seeks the best for the object of its love. Solomon's response impresses us because he recognized that a mother's love is so great and selfless that she will want the very best for her child even when that's at great cost to herself.

I'm blessed to have both received such love as a son from my mother, and to witness such selflessness by my wife for my sons.