Hospital visits

I've now worked at two different churches in my time in ministry.  Every church has its own culture, own expectations, and own priorities.  Each church's culture and expectations are no better or worse than the church down the street, just different.  The two churches have been pretty similar in a lot of ways, but one of the differences that I noticed quickly at McKinney was the importance of doing hospital visits.  Every pastor does them regularly, whereas at Countryside we did not do them daily but would visit if a member we knew well was in the hospital.

As a young pastor, for whatever reason I viewed regular hospital visits as somewhat old fashioned, like something you expected pastors to do a few generations ago, when they were paid in produce and poultry.  It's not that I didn't enjoy doing them, in fact from the very beginning I've loved that opportunity to go and visit with those who are sick, those who are bringing new life into the world, or those who are hoping to hold onto this life for a bit longer before going to the land of the living.  In many cases this ministry of presence is the most pure and humbling ministry I do all week.  As Paul says in Romans 12, "we weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice."  That's the ministry of hospital visits.

I was recently studying Ruth 1 in Hebrew and came across a passage that gave me a more pure perspective of this visitation ministry.  In Ruth 1:6 it says, "for she had heard in the land of Moab that the Lord had visited His people in giving them food."  That phrase, "that the Lord had visited," in the Hebrew is  פָקַ֤ד יְהוָה֙, (paqad Adonai).  The verb "paqad" has a variety of different meanings, but often means "to visit" or "to care" in association with the Lord.  This is the construction used in Exodus 4 when the LORD says He has visited or has concern for His people and in I Sam. 2 when the LORD has concern for Hannah's grief at being barren.  In each of these instances, what greater news could Naomi or the Israelites or Hannah had heard, than that the LORD, the God who is alive had visited, had cared for and was concerned for them?  

Certainly there are passages instructing us to visit one another in the NT, but this concept of the paqad Adonai is the foundation of the the ministry of visitation as it is grounded in God's nature as a God who visits, ultimately in the incarnation of Christ.  For He left the glories of Heaven and visited this world for a brief thirty years, making His presence, concern, and care for humanity known by visiting our world and even our fallen human nature.  Though our hospital visits do not come with the same power, or miracles as the paqad Adonai, we visit to show our concern, our care, and ultimately to be present with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We visit because our hearts are full of gratitude because of the grace and concern we have been shown from the paqad Adonai.  

Not the Way it's Supposed To Be

Jen and I recently updated our zoo membership to the Fort Worth Zoo.  As we left Stillwater, a sweet family bought us a family membership to the zoo at Fort Worth (as they had heard about how great Fort Worth's zoo is).  It was one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone gave us and turned out to be very useful and cheap entertainment to a poor seminary family!  We've probably used it somewhere around 15-20 times over the last fifteen months.

I love taking the boys to see all of the different animals.  They each have their favorites and those favorites seem to change from one trip to another.  The excitement in their eyes as they see a cheetah dart into a clearing, or a set of otters dive into the water would be well worth the price of admission.  More than the excitement in their eyes, I enjoy the conversations that are sparked as we see the diversity and creativity among the different animals.  I get the chance to talk about the God we worship to Hudson and observe his eagerness and willingness to ask me about why God made the orangutan so big, or the jaguar afraid of the water.  As parents, Jen and I pray for those conversations and are thankful for an environment where those conversations can be accelerated as we enjoy the creativity that He has put on the earth.

But to be honest, the zoo is a bittersweet trip.  As I walk around and see these magnificent animals, I can't help but feel that this isn't the way it's supposed to be.  My heart hurts as I hear people yelling at the bears, hoping to entice a growl, or making goofy faces at the silverback as if seeing him run into the glass is humorous, because this wasn't the way God designed us to interact with creation.  Certainly God designed man to rule over all of his creation, and to bear his image and likeness to it, and the idea of image and likeness has an authoritative role to it, but not like this.  Man was not made to cage the animals, and poke and prod at them, laughing and making fun of their lack of freedom.  Instead, man was to serve as God's representative on earth, ruling and reigning with care and justice.  In this way the zoo serves as one more reminder of the consequences of the fall.  Adam and Eve did not just lose fellowship with God and with one another due to their sin, but they also lost fellowship with creation as a result of their rebellion.

I usually end my trip to the zoo on a high note, as it reminds me again of the longing I have for Christ's return and I believe those animals and all of creation long for the same thing (Romans 8), when all of this world will be restored and reconciled with one another.  At that time no bars will need to separate me from tiger or lion, as this world will once again be the way God created it with the God Man ruling over all of it with care and justice as God designed in the beginning.  And perhaps this is the very best conversation I can have in those moments of the zoo with Hudson and Athan, that though we enjoy seeing these animals and the creativity that God has revealed in them, the best is still yet to come!

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!