Lezzbe honest, mkay?

     I just finished the book Scary Close, by Don Miller and I loved it. His main point was that the only way (or one of the only ways) to achieve real intimacy with someone in whatever relationship is to be open and honest. If you think about it, it makes total sense. If we go around presenting a front to the people we interact with because of insecurities, fears, or doubts, we essentially build a wall around ourselves. That wall inhibits growth, intimacy, joy, and fulfillment. Because at the end of the day (at least in my life) the only fulfillment I truly find is in my relationships with other people. 

     So let us pray to God to break down those walls so that we can build good, healthy, discipling relationships with each other. Let us pray that we would overcome our insecurities, realize we are all made perfect by Jesus' blood, and not one of us is better than another. Hopefully through doing this we can shine a light, and further His kingdom. 

     As Josh Garrels sings in his song, "Farther Along":

"Heaven filled me with more than enough

Broke down my levee and my bluff

Let the flood wash me."

Typical "Year in Review" Post

Now that the semester is over and I've had time to take a breath and actually think about something other than a Negishi coupling reaction, what hormones are secreted from the juxtaglomerular apparatus, or what the symptoms are from an infection of Mycoplasma pneumonia, I've done some reflecting. And besides the academic things I've lucubrated over this past semester, I've learned some other things. 

1. Dying to yourself is kind of hard.

            I’ve learned that basically everything in Christianity boils down to picking up your cross and following Jesus. Luke 9:23 and 24, “Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.’” But actually getting up every day and saying, okay today I am going to die to myself is a difficult thing to do.

            Everything around us constantly screams to pleasure ourselves. Food, drink, relationships, do it all because you deserve it. YOLO, and all that jazz. And while we definitely only have one life, the greatest thing we can do is to take our only life and surrender it to Jesus.

2. I don't need to know everything.

I love learning, and I love being able to edify other people with the things I am learning. Knowledge is life, and it's what separates us from barbaric practices. But there are things that I may never learn about, and that has frustrated me. 

I think that as we grow in our faith dances, God teaches us different things. The minute we pray those words we are taught to pray and accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we can't possibly be given all the knowledge we are meant to know throughout our life. Where would the growth be? That is what is so special about Christianity. As we grow, we constantly learn new things about God. He opens our eyes to what we couldn't see before, and that effect can be enchanting. 

But still, God doesn't want us, as humans, to know everything. Because HE is the One that is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. There are things in the Bible whose meaning will never be revealed to us. 

However, in that ignorance there may be a bit of bliss. He has revealed to us the important parts, to simply trust Him with your life. As I have mentioned before, the greatest call in the Bible is to die to yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus (Luke 9:23-24, Matthew 10:38, Romans 6:6-7). In doing so, we will have LIFE and FREEDOM. And everything will fall into place, because as we know so well, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (Matthew 6:26). 

3. Because I don't need to know everything, I don't need to worry about what God is doing.

On my campus this past year, there has been a lot of change and a lot of things not going too well. We chalked it up to being a “transition year” and left it at that, but in the back of my mind a constant thought was, what is God doing? I know without a shadow of a doubt that God does all things according to His perfect will, and nothing happens without a purpose, but I felt (and still feel) the need to know what that purpose is. What the end game to all of it is.

And I’m still working on it, but I’ve come to the realization that God’s perfect and holy will is not a thing that I need to ruminate over. I recently heard a sermon where the preacher told us about hurricanes. Hurricanes and tornadoes are mysterious and tragic things, and meteorologists and scientists are still working on figuring them out. So when a hurricane is headed to your home, you don’t stop and say, “Wait, we need to figure out all of its intricacies and the exact path this hurricane is going to take before we leave.” No, when a hurricane comes you pull tail and get out of there.

Just as we treat a hurricane, so we should treat God, the great and consummate Creator that crafted the hurricane. We don’t need to scrutinize the complexities of His will, we just need to obey His Word and what He has chosen to reveal to us.

I’ve learned many other things this past year, but these are the big ones. I love looking back on my life a year ago and just seeing what a different place I am in. I am excited to keep moving forward and keep discovering new things God wants me to learn, along the way pursuing the passions and dreams He has given me.

Adios amigos!

Psalm 50

Psalm 50:12-15

“¹²If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
    for the world and its fullness are mine. ¹³ Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats? ¹⁴ Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
    and perform your vows to the Most High, ¹⁵ and call upon me in the day of trouble;
    I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

I love this passage for numerous reasons:

1)      God has some serious dry wit.

Exhibit A: “Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” Like no, His being doesn’t require sustenance from mortal things that He created. He created us. He created the animals and plants that keep us alive. I’m assuming this passage is talking about the guilt and sin sacrifices/offerings the Israelites performed. So God is asking if we seriously think offering sacrifices to Him actually benefits Him in some way. No way Josè.  The guilt and sin sacrifices (and then the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior) our meant to benefit us. Us: the little puny humans whose lives aren’t more than mists in the wind (James 4:14). Us: the mortals who rely on God to give them strength (Psalm 28:7).

Exhibit B: Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3)

Exhibit C: God’s reply to Job’s suffering (Job, chapters 38-42)

2)      We don’t need to DO anything

God doesn’t have to be appeased. God literally appeases Himself through His creation. We don’t have to earn salvation through good works. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.” We don’t have to earn the approval of God. Thus…

3)      Everything we DO do should be in thanksgiving

Because we can’t earn God’s grace (it has already been freely given to us) we should thank the Lord by glorifying His name, which is ultimately what He requires us to do. And if He wants us to glorify His name, He will not lead us astray. Psalm 23:3 says, “He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.”

Getting Something Out of It

Why do we feel the need to “get something out of” our time with God??? Either in a sermon, or from reading the Bible, we feel that we have to have this huge 'eureka!' moment. But I've been realizing that our relationship with God shouldn't be about that.

In Knowing God, by JI Packer, he talks about the Holy Spirit, and how we sometimes seek all the good feelings that the Spirit can afford us without first seeking a relationship with the Father.

“The cause of such troubles as we have described is a false, magical type of supernaturalism, which leads people to hanker after a transforming touch as from an electric, impersonal power that will make them feel wholly free form the burdens and bondages of living with themselves and other people. They believe that this is the essence of genuine spiritual experience. They think the work of the Spirit is to give them experiences that are like LSD trips. (How unhelpful it is when evangelists actually promise this, and when drug users equate their fantasies with religious experience! Will our age never learn to distinguish things that differ?) In fact, however, this quest for inward explosion rather than an inward communion shows deep misunderstanding of the Spirit’s ministry.”

I think we all realize that reading our Bibles will not be akin to an LSD trip, but we still long for feelings of affirmation and empowerment when we read the words and yearn for God to speak to us. The words in Leviticus recording the types of sacrifices to perform are not as likely to give those feelings as the words in the gospel of John describing Jesus’ life on earth. But God’s word is holy and perfect. Every word in the Bible is there for a reason.

In my opinion, when we read any part of the Bible, we are learning more about God and Who He Is – The I Am. Our relationship with Our Heavenly Father is a long process, one that takes our whole lives to complete. It’s a dance: sometimes fast and sometimes slow and sometimes in between. A dance that we don’t even realize we are growing in until we look up perhaps even months later. There are so many verses about seasons in the Bible. We can’t bloom and show fruit in every single season, or else we’ll quickly die out.

• Ecclesiastes 3:1 "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the heaven."
• Psalms 1:3 "He is like a tree, planted by streams of water that yields fruit in its season..."
• Acts 1:7 "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority."

Sometimes the Bible challenges us: we read a verse and maybe haven’t had the experiences in life to understand it until years later. The Bible can be just totally and utterly confusing, but only by prayer and continuously being conscious in putting God first may we learn what it means. Sometimes we do get an “AHA!” moment where everything falls into place. Sometimes a verse/chapter/book affirms us and keeps us on the right path. Sometimes a verse/chapter/book shatters our world and we have to choose whether to totally change directions. But every time we read the Bible, we are learning about God. And no matter what the feeling is we “get out of it”, be they large or small or none at all, we are still learning about the God we worship, and that is totally enough.

An Elephant's Faithful One Hundred Percent

I’ve been reading straight through the Bible since last January, and it has been an incredibly eye-opening experience. I never knew I didn’t know the stuff that I didn’t know. I’ve already read through the New Testament and am currently in the Psalms, so I only have a little more to go.

In Psalms 15, it talks about what a righteous man is; someone who is fit to dwell on God’s holy hill. And it mentions that a righteous man in someone “who swears to his own hurt and does not change” (v. 4). So what does that mean?

Someone who “swears to his own hurt” does what he says. He carries out what he has promised to do, even if it comes to his own harm. This makes me think of Horton the elephant, in Seussical The Musical. Horton promises a flighty bird that he’ll take care of her egg for an afternoon because she needs a break. The bird, Maizy, takes advantage of Horton’s good character and flies away with no intention of coming back. Horton still protects that egg even though he is faced with hunters, poachers, extreme weather, and then put in a circus to be gawked at. He maintains throughout the story that he won’t go back on his word, because, “I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.” Even though he was ridiculed and ostracized for taking care of another bird’s egg, he kept his word. As a Christian, Jesus warns us in Matthew 10:16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.” There are people in this world that will take advantage of someone who keeps their word, so sometimes it is okay to say no. I think as we grow in wisdom in our dance with the Lord, it becomes easier to discern when we can truly help or when someone is just trying to take advantage of us.

In Matthew 14, King Herod gave an oath to Herodias’s daughter that she could have anything that she asked for. When she told him she wanted the head of John the Baptist, “the King was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given” (v. 9). To his own hurt of having a fairly innocent man killed, Herod kept his word. In this instance, we must learn that it’s never a good idea to be so filled with lust that we promise anything to our cunning step-daughter.

But anyway, Horton is commendable because he swore to his own hurt and did not change. He didn’t waiver one bit once he set out to do what he promised. In Matthew 5:37 Jesus tells us, “Let what you say be simply, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” If I have to swear up and down to someone that I will indeed do what they ask, then somewhere along the way my character has become tainted. It can be a long process to get it back, but most certainly not impossible with God. And lastly, in James 5:12, “But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be “no”, so that you may not fall under condemnation.”

American Dream

I saw this picture as I was scrolling through Facebook, and honestly it made me want to vomit. An anxious feeling crept up from my toes, and I started getting nervous.
I was thinking, what if this is what actually happens in my life? What if this is all I ever achieve? And I could barely stand it the feelings of hopelessness and emptiness.
America has crippled a nation with the invention of a dream that allows people to be comfortable.
I don't want a normal house with a normal yard with normal kids that go to normal schools. I don't want normal neighbors that I wave to when I get the paper but never converse with. I don't want a normal life with a good steady job, and I don't want to never have to wonder if I'll be financially stable the next week. I don't want to be comfortable.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't want the "American Dream." I want to do so much more.
I want people to know who I am and the God I represent.
I want to depend on God to get me from day to day.
I don't care where I live, if I have a white-picket fence, 3 dogs, 5 turtles, or a Bengal tiger in my backyard.
I know that I want to do something. I want to help change the world. I honestly don't know what that looks like, or where I can do that to the best of my abilities, but I know that God has big plans for His people. And if I can be a part of that, all praise and glory be unto Him!

.

God's Goodness

God's goodness is a tricky concept. If God is good, and He is loving and kind, how does He allow bad things to happen?

First of all I will state that I do not know the full answer to this question. But I have been reading a book (Knowing God by JI Packer) that talks a lot about this concept. And while he answers some questions, he also leaves others kind of hanging in the air, but I have been able to get kind of a grasp on the concept of God's goodness.

• ·         Psalm 100:5 – “For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”
• ·         Ps 136:1 – “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
• ·         1 Chronicles 16:34 – “O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
• ·         Nahum 1:7 – “The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble, And He knows those who take refuge in Him.”

And I could go on and on with these examples. Just google “God’s goodness” and about a hundred verses will pop up.

So what does being good mean? To me it means that God is the culmination of every perfect thing. He is holy and perfectly encompasses every holy attribute wholly in Himself. And He doesn’t just keep those things to Himself – He is generous. He generously gives His love and affection, generously doles out mercy and grace.

~ ~ ~

God has to somehow hold His goodness to a standard. There is retribution and punishment for evil. If you were to spurn His generosity and His grace that He freely gives, that’s on you. That is your decision – you have cut yourself off from the Father’s goodness. And if you continuously spurn His teachings and commandments, and do not stick to goodness but instead cling to evil, there will be punishment for those choices. As Packer puts it – God’s wrath will be incited.

• ·         Jeremiah 18:6-10 – “’O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done?’ declares the Lord. ‘Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.’ ”

So how can a loving God be able to possess wrath?

This is the part where I get a little confused. I think of wrath being exhibited by a mighty hand extending from the sky, perhaps with a lightning bolt or two, or the anger of a woman scorned (lol). 

But God possesses righteous wrath. He IS righteous wrath.

Righteous wrath is the punishment of wrongs. In order to be a good God, there must be a standard of good, and something to back that standard up. We are human beings, we are sinful. Sin is wrong in God’s eyes. Therefore since we are human we deserve punishment.

It’s almost like a reflex – wrong deserves punishment. But it is also not a reflex because God possesses mercy and grace that pardons us from the wrongs we committed – the embodiment of Jesus Christ.

~ ~ ~

Alright so God has to back up His goodness. What about bad things happening to good people? What about cancer, and plain suffering?

• John 9: 1-7 – “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.”

So the bad things that happen to us, like cancer or blindness (or even diabetes – #holleratme), are not because of some wrong we may have committed. The things that we go through, the trials we persevere, are all for the glory of Him who commissions us. While we are on this earth and while we endure our sufferings, God’s works are being displayed, and what greater role than that can we play?

God loves all of His children more than we can comprehend. I think that His greatest desire is for us to draw closer to Him (side note: desire may not be the best word because God isn’t human and doesn’t necessarily possess human emotions, but I digress). If we were to live perfect lives and never go through anything, very few people would see the necessity of God, and very few people would want to draw close to Him. So, besides the fact that there is sin in this world and there is pain and suffering, God uses the strenuous circumstances to draw us and others closer to Him, and closer to each other.

• Isaiah 64:8 – “But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

When we go through trials and suffering, or experience the tribulations of someone close to us, God is simply shaping the relationship between us and Him. It may be arduous for both, but at the outcome, the relationship will be stronger. And strengthening your relationship with God is what Christianity is really all about.