jumping in

I am running on fumes. Yesterday we took our small group of middle school boys into the woods of southern Wisconsin and then to Great America for the day. I forgot that eager anticipation is the only thing that will get a 13 year old boy up early and they were very excited about our time today. So at the late hour of 5:30 they were up and trying to take down all the tents so we could get a 'good start'. What in the world?!

I was reminded today that I really do like these guys. I would have never thought that God would direct my life to a place where I was working with snotty middle school students but here I am and I am thankful for it. They are a strange mixture of innocence and raging hormones and almost to a person are encountering Jesus for the first time in a personal way.

Our new year begins this next week and today was a reminder of what is soon to come. I would love to ask you for your prayers as you remember as we sure can use them. Specifically we are attempting to join with another church in town which will add a great amount of diversity to both groups in a number of different ways. I know of people trying to do this sort of thing a number of times and more often then not I hear of failures and frustrations. That both scares me and excites me. I am still working through what are the 'right' reasons to bring such different groups together and if times do prove difficult, then what vision is makes it all worth it? I don't know yet, maybe I never will.

Now I am off to listen to something other then punk music and cleanse my soul with adult conversation.

soul rest

Last night I rolled back into Madtown after four days of hiking in the Porcupine Mountains. It was a fantastic time of getting into the woods and being with close friends. These trips are food for the soul and all three of us hiking agreed upon is a needed aspect of our lives.

There is just something about escaping the day-to-day rush and busyness and being reduced to answering the questions, ‘what to eat’ and ‘when should we stop walking’ that puts the world in perspective. On top of that I really love my friends and the process we go through while discussing an idea. An idea is proposed, refuted, refined and debated until we quickly degrade into juvenile humor to then leap again to higher intellectual ground for a time and sink again. The cycle was repeated over and over again and I loved it. These trips are so restful and I suppose they really could not be otherwise when we sleep 9-10 hours a night.

I think I have been ruined for expensive vacations and I have my parents to thank for that and making our family camp out of the back of the car as I was growing up. I missed out on Disney World but I did learn how to cook some pretty dang good pizza over a fire so take that Mickey.

study break

I am taking a quick break from cramming for my final tomorrow but two quick things:

1. I can’t wait till I am done with this degree so that I can do fun things like take fun classes like cooking or getting my motorcycle license. I really do love learning but as my brain is beginning to ooze out my ears I long for a new stage of life.
2. I skimmed an article in the paper this morning about people who get fired from their jobs because of what they post on their blogs or ruin relationships with good friends. I would like to state for the record that I love you all and Blackhawk church is a wonderful place to work. (in case anyone reads this)

do i care?

I have just finished reading the OT for my class, well all of it except for what I will listen to on the ride back to Chicago tomorrow and I feel the need to exhale my thoughts…

First of all so that I do not appear more devout then I truly am, I am about to finish a two week course on the Hebrew Bible and one of the things I have had to do is read it in that amount of time (see previous posting).

Anyways here are some themes that jumped out to me today as I cruised through the prophets. First of all, God really cares about the poor. I mean this is sort of one of those ‘well duh’ sort of observations but the thing is I realized that I have somewhat compartmentalized talking about my faith and poverty as it were my attempt to truly align myself with the Christian left. But it is so much more then that and forgive me for harping on the obvious but God gets pretty pissed off at people for being really religiously active but not giving a crap about the least in our very midst. And as I see it, with the relative ease of world travel that really leaves no one out that we should not be deeply moved by when they are in need. That makes my gut hurt. The truth is I suck at that sort of thing. I mean maybe if I play the game of ‘am I better then that other Christian’ I do okay because lets be honest most of us do pretty well at that game. But do I really care about what God cares about is the bottom line. I am not sure about that.

Another theme that jumped out was divine punishment for evil. We, or at least I, do not like to think about that one all that much. I prefer happier things, like love and grace and peace and good beer. But God is a God of wrath and injustice will be punished. Even when Israel thought it was actively worshipping YHWH they missed the point by merely putting forth the motions. Which gets back to the same point as earlier. Do I care about the things God cares about? Am I moved to anger about anything? And when I am is it concerning the right things?

I hope and pray that we do not prostitute the bride of Christ as has been and will continue to be so easy to do.

silly hebrews

It has been a long time since I last blogged and am I am pretty sure I would have given up on it if it were not for my friend Mary who is a blogging animal, I will say three nice things if that sounds bad, and keeps after me to post something new.

So here are some thoughts that have been going on this last week or so…

I am taking a class for two weeks on the Old Testament and I am about half done with as of today. The class as a whole is pretty easy but one of the challenging things and it is proving quite challenging for my ADD is to read the entire Old Testament while taking the class. It means sitting down for at least 3-4 hours a day, which I do enjoy but I can only take in so much Hebrew poetry before I start speaking in parallelisms. That is funny only to me and most likely 1 other person who reads this page.

One of the things that have jumped out at me while I have been reading at this rapid pace is the ongoing theme of the amazing relationship that God offered to the Israelites. I mean he picked them out seemingly at random, or maybe because they were little and nothing and offered to have a close, personal relationship with them. He also made things pretty easy considering what other nations were doing to make their gods happy. They did not have to self mutilate or kill their own kids. Plus the idea of grace seems to pop up time and time and time again starting right away in Genesis. Yet despite all that and how God wanted to be with them they come across as the biggest idiots in all history. I mean they make idols about three minutes after Moses leaves them and the mountain is right there as a visual of God coming down. Or later they become Sodom, the place that is set up as an example of a people hitting moral bottom. They are offered so much and respond so little.

Then it hit me. As I was driving to class, which is way to early by the way, that I and I think many of us do the same exact thing. Different time and different place but we too are offered a close relationship with God. It is based on grace, just like the Israelites, and the offer looks pretty amazing on paper. We are told that God wants to work in us to make us like Christ. Cool. I mean there are days I would love to wake up and be another Billy Graham but why not be like Jesus instead, plus I hear Billy could not play soccer worth crap and I do like soccer.

And yet despite this I too turn away easily, quickly and repeatedly. From a bird’s eye view I can’t imagine that my life looks all that much better then the nation of Israel. It has its good times and plenty of bad times and through it all I must remind myself that God is control and his grace is sufficient. Otherwise I am pretty sure I am screwed.