Only God Can Save Us

"Only God can save us."

I love Church history, especially the theological development that the church has experienced in the last two thousand years. You see, I believe in revelation and that there are truths that exist that have either been forgotten or never discovered before, but have always existed. This is not just a theological idea but a world view. Though Democritus came up with the idea of the atom, and people like Bohr and Rutherford drew us a clearer picture of the atom, the atom has been around as long as there had been matter in the universe. Truth exists, and through various means and ways we learn more about it, through the application of scientific knowledge, through logical reasoning, through tradition and through indirect and direct revelation. What I'm getting at here is that truth exists and belongs to the creator of that truth, God, and is not subject to change or alteration, however what we know of that truth is being revised and changed as we learn more.

When we apply this concept to who God is we can see that throughout the text of the Bible that God is constantly revealing more about who He is and what He is like. There's a progression of sorts, with a specific purpose that constantly gets brought up again and again. God is looking for a relationship with us. When I read through the book of Genesis I constantly have to remind myself of one thing - the bible didn't exist yet! They had no revelation other than what God had told them. They knew God didn't like murder and wanted sincere offerings from the story of Cain and Abel. They knew He wanted righteousness in all of man kind and was willing to punish the unrighteous from the story of Noah. They knew that God was willing to talk to people directly and even put up with people who questioned His authority and goodness. But no Ten Commandments. No Jewish food laws. No rules about building parapets on the roof of your house. No promise of a Messiah (and really, in their minds, probably no realization of the need of a messiah) He wasn't, in their minds, even really God as we know Him; God, the one and only. He was their God, but still just a god among many.

Why is this important you might ask? Because there is a key distinction about change I am trying to point out, God does not change, but what we understand about Him does. In fact when we look at God revealing himself to humanity its lot like teaching math or a foreign language to somebody. I think, if you really wanted to. You could sit down with the whole corpus of knowledge of math books from elementary addition and number theory all the way up to calculus and you might have 4 or 5 large textbooks worth of information. And you could just sit down and read it. Straight through. Depending on your reading speed, it might take you a week or two, maybe as long as a month. So why do we spend 12-16 years studying math in school? Because the concepts and principles of mathematics must be learned, not just merely read about. The same is true about God, He waits for the people to get a concept before He moves on to the next one. In a sense He is teaching the human race what He is like, and how they should live in light of that revelation. It doesn't mean that what was revealed first is now irrelevant, rather it becomes the foundation on which the rest of the house is built. I have some beliefs about what those foundational things were and how they were revealed in Genesis but for now I just want to focus on one of those; God speaks.

I thank God all the time that He speaks. That He spoke in the past, that He's still speaking today. I do not think that Revelation 22:21 was the last thing God had to say to us. He has fleshed out the what was meant by the promise he made to Abraham, that Abraham's seed would be a blessing to the nations in the old testament. We see a new course of the fulfilment of that promise in the new testament. And through church history we see the application of that promise through the people of God. Which is why I think church history is important. It shows us how we got to where we are now and why we believe what we believe. The old testament and the Gospels are primarily a Jewish phenomenon. After Pentecost there started to be more and more gentile followers of what was called "The Way" called such because Jesus said he was the "Way to the Father and no man enters except by me." And there came a time when their process of conversion was called into question. Did they have to convert first to Judaism and all that entailed with the food laws and methods of dressing and so forth before they could become followers of the Messiah. So they got together all the big names in the Church at that time, Paul, Peter, James and others to come to some sort of decision. Their conclusion was that gentiles did not in fact have to become Jews to become Christians. And what did they base that decision on? Look at the end of Acts 15 - "It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit."

This is where the idea for the church councils came from. Get together the best minds and the best leaders from the church and hammer out various issues as they arose. All of this to say, that while I don't believe that their conclusions at each of these councils (there were seven that are generally accepted.) The thrust of these councils was usually theology, soteriology, and heresy though they discussed all sorts of things and were pretty rich with intrigue (my favorite story involves the gift of ostriches to the king, but we'll save it for another time)

What I want to get to in this particular case is the first of these meetings. They were looking to answer a question that Jesus asked of his disciples; "Who do you say that I am?" They started with the idea that only God can save us. In fact Jesus' own name comes from the name Joshuah which means YHWH saves. Now that presents us to with a small problem. Why? Because Jesus claims repeatedly to be the only way to salvation and eternal life.

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one form another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats...Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (Mathew 25:31,36)

The phrase "son of man" is one of the titles used of Jesus and the kings of Israel. Here he claims that it will be him, Jesus, who sits on the throne and will separate the wicked from the good and send the wicked to eternal punishment and the righteous to eternal life. But only God can save us.

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." (John 3:14-17)

Everyone who believes in the SON will have life. Not the Father, not YHWH, but the son. And the world was saved through the son. But only God can save us

"... whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." {John 4:14}

Jesus will give the spring of eternal life?

"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does no honor the Father, who sent him."
"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." {John 5:21-24}

The Son can give out life to whom he pleases? He doesn't have to consult with the father?

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:40)

Again "every one who believes in the Son"? This is blasphemy right? How could it not be? There are more verses just like these where Jesus claims to the "the gate", "the way", "one with the Father", "the light of the world" or my favorite...

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,“and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” And its not like the people around Jesus didn't know what he was talking about. He said "Hey! I can forgive your sins, give you abundant life here on earth, and eternal life in the life to come! As long as you believe in me!" Well the scribes and the Pharisees under stood it alright. They grumbled the first time they heard it, argued with him about it and finally plotted his death. When the 1st Church Council got underway they read these verses and others from the old and new testament and they wanted to know, was Jesus God or was he just very nearly God, higher and better than us, but not quite God? There aretwo Greek words they were arguing about. Was Jesus "Homoousios", of the same substance, or "Homoiousios", of a similar substance (this is where we get the phrase "Don't change one iota", iota being the Greek letter "i"). They argued back and forth over the titles that Jesus and others called him, over his deeds in life, his death and Resurrection. But finally they found a starting point. Only God can save us. And yet Jesus claimed to save us. If he claimed to save us but was "Homoiousios", of a similar nature to God, then he was really "heteroousios" of a different nature than God. And if he's of a different nature, than he couldn't save us in the way that he claimed. And if that was untrue, what else did he say that was untrue? If he couldn't save us, what kind of man would that make him? At least tyrants and murderers only take the body. Here would be a man who takes the soul and the spirit. A cult leader or a sociopath at best, at worst a demon in some human form. If he was not of the same nature of God, then we should scrap the New Testament and take up the old ways of following the law, the sacrifices, and the rituals of seeking YHWH. But then how do you explain the working of God in the lives of his followers? Amazing miracles, exponential growth, daily salivations. "He saved us" they said. "The evidence is there." Jesus was "Homoousios", the same nature as God, "made" from the same stuff, cut from the same cloth, in fact one with God. John 1 reflects that. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." The Greek of the last phrase "the word was God" has both "Logos" and "Theos" as genitive nouns- God and the Word are the same. Who is the word? Look down a few verses. He was with God in the beginning, all things were made through him, in him was life and light, and he became flesh and dwelt among us (actually the Greek word is verb form of tabernacle, so more than just living among us he Tabernacled among us) Their conclusion, that Jesus was God. Did this cause some other issues? Yes! and they knew it. In fact they much of the next 4 counsels figuring out the answer to the original question "Who do you say that I am" They were settled on the God-ness of Jesus but that left them with other un-answered questions: what is the relationship between the Father and the Son? What about the "one God" belief of the Jews? Wait wasn't Jesus human too? How does that work? Um yeah and the Holy Spirit? Who or what is that? But they had a starting point. Jesus was God. Otherwise we end up in the condition that Paul wrote about in 1 Cor 15, believing in a "savior" who could not even save himself If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied (1 Cor 15:19) But there was to much evidence then to ignore, pointing to the diety of Christ, that they knew that Jesus was who he claimed to be and did the things he claimed to be. And the corpus of that knowledge has only increased, changed lives, awakenings, people who were lost and now are found. Halleluia! I will close with the creed, accepted by the church worldwide, that they wrote together to keep thier minds strait and thier worship of God focused on the truth of who he is and is named for the city in which the first counsel took place. The Nicene Creed I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Jesus is God, right?

Jesus is God, right?

I say this slightly in jest because for most Christians, its something we say we believe pretty readily but after an conversation I had at church with a guy, I went away wondering about the effectiveness of the message.

Here's how the conversation went down. I met this guy at church (actually one of the pastors brought him to me cause he had "deep philosophical" type questions and his normal go to guy wasn't there) He was taking a course on Islam taught by a Muslim and was wondering about the "First Miracle" of Jesus. Now most people have heard some allegorical teaching on the miracles of Jesus out of the book of John at some point in their lives, and when they do this they often say that Jesus changing water into wine is his "First Miracle". Now while I'm not sure that description is correct, the professor of this particular class was claiming Jesus' first miracle was that he spoke to the wise men that came to see him at his birth. (This is what the Qur'an claims Qur'an 3:46)

Now his original question had to do with how old Jesus was when the wise men came and weather or not his speaking to them would be a miracle (It wouldn't be a miracle if Jesus was say 4 or 5 but it would be if he was 1 or 2) But I was more concerned with the actual content of Jesus' supposed words from the Qur'an (though in my quick search I could not find as a quotation from Jesus; it was only stated about Jesus). His supposed statement to the wise men was "I am the messenger whom Allah has sent."

Now when I was talking to him, I took objection to that phrase. Jesus of the bible never claims to be a "messenger", John does as do the angels when they appear (which is actually the word used to describe angel - angelos in Greek just means messenger) But Jesus claims to be the Son of God, and to be of the same nature of God, and in some way actually God Himself (John 14:7-10, John 10:30, John 14:11, John, 10:37-38, John 17:11- I know these are all from John, John just has the clearest statements about the deity of Christ without needing a whole lot of explanation)

Now had Jesus appeared to the Romans or Buddhists or African Animists, there would have been much less opposition to his claim of being God. They had a plethora of gods, and one more wasn't going to make that much of an uproar. But the Jews had been uniquely prepared by divine revelation to believe only in ONE God. "Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE!" So for Jesus to show up and claim he was God... well lets just say there were those who did not receive him as such. So this was an issue that the early Church had to deal with, answering the question that Jesus posed even to his own disciples; "Who do you say that I am?" And they didn't work it all out at once but over many years, through meeting together as a whole much like the apostles did in Acts 15, through prayer, through scripture and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

So when all the church leaders got together to discuss the answer to the question "Who do you say that I am" they came up with a simple logical argument. "Jesus saved us. Only God can save. Therefore Jesus must have been God." Later councils also confirmed the humanity of Jesus, but without him actually being God, our "salvation" is a moot point and we should all revert back to the Jewish practices of sin management on a national scale.

But this man visibly flinched every time I said Jesus was God. After noticing it the first time I said it, I slipped in a comment about his deity a couple of times to seek if it was a fluke or not, but he had a visible bodily reaction every time. Now here was a guy who seemed moderately educated in the faith and enthusiastic about defending that faith in this class on Islam that he was taking and yet, it finally came out in conversation that he didn't think Jesus was actually God, but that he was just an example for us, and the "Son of God" was more of a title given to him for his righteousness.

Where did we fail this guy? It was obvious he was caught up in some sort of works based theology after talking to him, I think because if Jesus was just an example, then Christianity then becomes about trying (and failing) to live up to that standard, and there's no room for grace. There's no freedom for him, just a different sort of bondage.

Do we focus on the wrong sorts of things in our teaching and our discipleship, telling people to be like Christ and live a Christian life without giving them the understanding of who God is and how that is accomplished though Him in the various roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

There's three questions I always try to fall back on in writing, teaching or studying the word

-Who is God and what is He like?

-What is the Church and what is her purpose? and

-How do we fit into and have relationship with God and His Church?

And I think these are in order of importance (at least for me) that without right knowledge of who he is, the church and our relationship to God and the Church will always be skewed. Classical orthodox christian teaching, especially that which comes from the annals of church history have always seemed important to me and I'm seeing more and more the need to impart that love of the discovery of who God is more and more. People need solid food to grow into mature Christians who know who God is and reflexively know the truth from a lie.

(1025, Dang way over, sorry)

Word association

This is pretty much what goes on inside of my head most days.

Really Summer

Okay so I finished the last of my ESLR reports today.

And my teacher evaluation. And my measurment testings.

I turned in my books and all my curriculum.

Summer at last.

A week late.

But summer at last.

Projects galore... for me and for others.

But I think Im going to have some tea when

I get up tomorrow, and read my book for a

little while in the quiet of the morning. Maybe

on the patio where my little herbs are growing?

Maybe in my newly arranged "den" at the end

of the hallway to nowhere? We'll see.

Then I might be ready for building and making and finishing and computing.

Say hi to my little herbs. I think this is basil. Too small to tell.

Summer

So its summer time. School's out, which means I don't have to go to work but I still get paid for two months. Okay so technically I still have some work to do over the summer but I thought I'd start with something fun. Like redesigning my blog. Maybe it will inspire me to write some more? I have things to say but either they seem too short and almost duh'ish or too long to make it into my self imposed 500 word limit or too convoluted to unravel in a way that makes sense. Oh bother...

At least the blog looks a little more stylish in my opinion. Nothing like at least knowing you have a space to be creative in.

The Waiting...

Waiting is hard sometimes... especially when you don't know when something will happen.

Like when I was a kid... the tornado warnings would come on and we would all go sit in the closet under the stairs and watch the TV from the door. I would play with Legos and I have vivid memories of this picture of an owl that was made by stringing thread from nail to nail that was in this closet due either to incompleteness or ugliness, I cant remember. And you just don't know if something is going to happen or not. I much prefer the earthquakes of Southern California (even if I still run for door for the little ones) because of their immediacy. They happen and then they are over.

And a constant state of readiness... can be exhausting. This is why the army finds an invasion force much better than an occupying force. An invasion force is on the move with time tables and strategy whereas an occupying force is sitting around waiting for something to happen, not knowing when or where it will happen but knowing that it will. Its a nerve racking dreariness.

And in waiting for a baby to come, I feel all of this. Every day people say, "When's the baby coming?" and I have to say is, "I don't know". I cant even use what I used to say to people "Well she's due on the 6th" since that has since come and gone. Now its just a constant exercise of readiness in waiting. Waiting is hard. Because I'm used to just doing it. Just Do It.

And I realize I probably have this same problem with God. I don't really want to wait for Him. I feel like I'm out of step some times, either too far ahead or too far behind like a puppy who runs ahead of his master and strains at his leash only to find some interesting smell from which the master has to drag him. The master never changed. His pace was consistent, steady and yet always feels like an inconvenience.

And the baby's pace hasn't changed, consistently and steadily growing in Sarah's womb. It will come when the growth has culminated in a new and pressing need to be in the world and not protected from it. Soon, it will come. But the waiting is the hardest part.

"You take it on faith...

You take it to the heart...

But the waiting is the hardest part."

-Tom Petty

Barack the Builder?

So I've been sitting on this thought for a while and since Obama's acceptance speech where he repeatedly said the following phrase...
"Can we do it?" to which the crowd answered "Yes we can"
Just though it was funny, cause it reminds me of Bob the Builder.
"Can we build it?" "Yes we can!"
Can I be the only one to have thought this?
Oh well. I thought it would be a good inauguration day post.

Breakthrough and Impass

I feel like I have made a breakthrough in my boys bible class- they are actually starting to think for themselves. After spending a few weeks discussing prayer, i.e. what our prayers should consist of, things to pray for, prayers from the bible, and things like that my eighth grade boys have started asking the right sorts of questions- no longer is it, "How should I pray so I can get the things I want?" but "How do I know what God wants me to do?" and "Why cant I hear Him speak to me?"

We discussed the discipline of fasting yesterday. Not fasting for fasting's sake or for others to perceive you as holy, but fasting to put down the things of the world, and spend that time seeking God. As a friend of mine puts it "Word up and world down" like God and the world were two competing radios. Which one can you hear? The one that you make the loudest in your life.

I challenged them to a media fast, that is, turning off the video games, the cell phones, the TVs and Myspace to really seek after God. There were some guffaws at first, then the acceptance that they could do that for a day. To which I said how bout a week or a month? Do you really want to hear what God wants to say? Their response made my heart sad, knowing they had missed some crucial element in their education.

"Isn't there a shortcut?"

Life isn't like Candyland. There's no shortcut over the rainbow bridge.

The work of Christianity always seemed worth the effort too me. I'm being loose with my language because of my frustration, but isn't doing the work that God calls us too, infinitely more valuable than beating level seven on guitar hero?

Please give me your thoughts and suggestions? I feel that part of their openness is due to the modeling of Christ in my life, they see it and want it, but when I give them just a taste of what needs to change in their own lives to follow hard after him, they recoil as if I had dropped a snake on their desk.

How do I convince them He's more than worth it?

Tagged by Andy

So a friend of mine (Andy) tagged me in his blog to write six random things about myself and then tag six other people to do it as well, though I'm not sure I have even six readers of my blog at this point.

1) Though I dont have cable television, I do manage to keep up on my two favorite shows, The Office and Project Runway. Now I know that Project Runway caters to women but I like the construction and fabrication aspect of the actual clothes they design. Oh well.

2) My wife thinks I'm autistic. I walk on my toes, I memorize things well, I tell the same stories over and over, I mutter little jokes to myself that only I find ammusing, I can keep a running count of cards up to a four deck stack and I find great comfort in rocking back and forth when ever I am distraugh.

3) I hate talking on the phone. I dont hardly ever call people or anything. It probably makes me a bad person.

4) I love building things with my hands. Maybe its because I dont get to do it as often as I like, but I think I could do it for a living. I did it over the summer for a couple of months and loved it. I think its all the thinking tim you get. Your hands are busy and you mind can be elsewhere. Unless you are using sharp instuments.

5) When I was little I would do this thing with my fingers to tell my mother she was being wierd. I found out last week that it is actually the sign in ASL for wierd. Which I guess at some point I knew but forgot because I had been doing this since I was 5 or 6 years old. Which is wierd right?

6) I like green things. I like plants. Watching them grow and flower and produce. There's something whole and right and simple about the order and the progress, the flow of seasons, and the smells of life in the soil.

Now Im supposed to tag people who blog but I dont really know that many so how bout Aaron, Micah, Glen, Willy, Chelsea and Leisy

Stage 3 of Moving and the First Week of School

So when asked about how i was doing I told someone I was in the third stage of moving (like the five stages of grief). The third stage is utter loathing of cardboard boxes. (The others are, in order, excitement about moving, realization that you have only a week left to pack, the drudgery of furniture moving day, and finally acceptance.)

On a lighter note I have technically finished my first week of teaching! Its gong well and I'm seeming so far to be able to do my work at school so I don't have to take it home with me. The teachers and the Principal are pretty amazing and have given me some nice complements that they have heard from students (mostly that I'm going to make them work but that they really enjoy the class.) All my classes except one have a test on Friday, and the one that doesn't has already had two quizzes (they groan a lot but hey, its anatomy and physiology and there's a lot to learn.) This morning I led staff devotions where we prayed for one another and I'm leading worship for chapel this afternoon with another teacher here.

So that's all for my update but I'm working on an article about Worship and My Favorite Heretic (Nestorius who called himself the Hammer of the Heretics and ended up becoming one)

Peace to you all
Adam

Oy Vey!

So today I went by the school and picked up yet another box of books for my classes that I'm teaching. I'm now offically teaching Chemistry, Anatomy and Physiology, 2 Biology classes and the 8th grade boys Bible class. But i had a fantastic conversation to day which i will recount here.

"Well we're having breakfast and lunch for all the new teachers tommarow."

"Great what are we having?"

"Its a supprise"

"Well Im just asking cause I dont eat pork or dairy"

"Oh cause your..." she nods at me as if waiting for me to fill in the word. "You know, like Hebrew"

Any ways I thought it was pretty funny.

-A

New Adventures

So if you havent heard, my wifey and I are going to have a baby!

And we're moving out of our little barn into a much bigger barn.

And I start my first day of school on thursday.

So theres alot of change going on right now for us. The easiest change mentally to deal with is moving. I've been moving all my life. If I stay somewhere too long I have to move all the furniture completely arround just so it feels a little diffrent. I like the process of going through things, throwing out the junk, and keeping the sentamental and remmebering the stories that go along with all the little keep sakes.

And right now my wife is doing most of the work for the baby. Sure I do a few more things arround the house but shes the one "climbing mountains" as people keep telling us. But were looking foward to raising our children together and helping them to grow up strong and capible in the ways of our faith.

And school, well, its a small private school so in teaching science, I am the only high school science teacher. So my corses are probable changing today as they go over the schedule due to low enrollment in one of my classes and high enrollment in some others, but Im just rolling with the punches and excited about doing something a bit more fufilling than planning out tract home neighborhoods.

So just a quick update, and Im off to start the rest of my day; transcribing, packing, and lesson planning.

My new Job!

So yesterday I went and signed my life away for the next year but Im pretty excited about it. I signed my contract for working at Cornerstone and will get my first paycheck on the first of September which will give us a working budget instead of constantly hopping from random job to random job though for the past two and the next two weeks I have and will be working for the Priors doing random work arround their house and God has been amazingly faithful in taking care of us throught this time.

So I will be teaching three science classes, a bible class and working with the worship band for chapel. I picked up some of my teaching supplies.

These are my teaching supplies for just two of my classes so I've got some lesson planing in front of me :)

Thursday Again...

My wife is out of town at what was supposed to be a wedding but turned into a fun girls weekend away due to some issues with the US consulate and a visa for the groom. So Sarah is in Connecticut and I'm batching it for the weekend.

But I got a call yesterday from a school that I had previously turned down due the course load they wanted me to teach and the compensation they were offering. So I met with the principal and they actually offered me less work and more money than before so we're praying about it but it looks like a good deal and it keeps me from driving down to Escondido everyday which is exactly 50 miles there and then 50 miles back everyday.

So I'll probably end up working there starting the end of August which is good but still means I am scrambling for work in the meantime but its okay.

-Adam

Thursday...

So I just got done mowing grass with my brother in-law and realized that I have been some what remiss in writing, its not that I have nothing to say but that most of what I have been learning is about doing.

Faith perfected through actions.

Its been an interesting and sometimes difficult couple of months for us. Most of my time has been taken up in looking for a job, since I lost my job about two months ago. I haven't found anything permanent yet, but have supplemented our family income through a lot of random odd jobs mostly involving some sort of physical labor. Which means I've got listening of different messages done and had lots of time to sit and think/pray.

Things I learned...

Walk in my gifting... When troubles come its easy to pull back from things and "wait and see" and really that's sin. Not to say that you shouldn't put some energy into providing for your family, just remember who you are and walk in that identity as best you can.

Remember my priorities... I got offered a job that progressively the conditions changed for the worse. At first it was full time, then fifty to sixty hours, then six days a week, oh yeah and they were going to nights for the next 4 months so I would have been working from 8 pm to 6 am seeing my wife for only 2-3 hours a day. And there were some who couldn't believe it wouldn't take it because it would have been so much money and i didn't have a job at the time. But I made a vow to my wife when we got married to do certain things that take more three hours to accomplish. She's a priority in my life.

Trying to reconcile relationships doesn't always work... But it doenst mean you shouldn't try.

Honor is a language rarely spoken... even in our Church circles. We forget the power of our words and when we rob people of honor, we acknowledge that and go back and restore that that honor to them. And if we see someone dishonored, and recognize it, then we ought to go and address those things.

Don't use pocket knives when you are tired... Which is why i now have an nice scar on my hand about 3/4 of an inch long and about 3/4 of an inch deep.

Family is important and I look foward to having our little family for a long time...


So tomorrow I have my third interview with Light and Life school in Escondido. We'll see what happens. The pastor has an integrated view of using the school to reach out and minister to families in addition to providing a Christian education to the students. If i get it, I'll commute for now, but who knows what the future will bring.

-Adam

Cars and Fridgadares

So on Friday I went home early from work, cause there really wasn't any thing left to do and decided to work on my car a bit changing out my brake pads and re-installing the factory stereo so i could jam to some tunes while I was cruising around.

So when I went to take off the passenger tire this is what i was greeted by...



So thank God it didn't like blow up on me some where. Theres a chunk of rubber missing and it is worn through the reinforcing wires under the tread.

Thats it.

I'm working on some other stuff but it's not ready yet :)

Man Camp

So following in the footsteps of the last few posts and the hope that the thought of a the week doesnt become a reality ("Awarness without change is worse than ignorance") I have been dealing with these issues of brokeness in my life.

In the last blog I addressed some issues with competance that I am working through. Most of them come from past experiences and while I still need to deal with my own hurts and injuries, this weekend these issues bubbled to the surface.

I went to man camp this weekend. Okay every body who didnt ride up in our car called it Men's Retreat, but by the end of the weekend we got a few others to call it that too. But unbeknownst to me, my step-dad also came up for the weekend. Okay well, Im 26 almost 27, I havent lived at home in 6 years, Im married and really, I have almost nothing of a relationship with him other than saying hi and seeing him at family events.

I came up with some younger guys and saw some guys there from other churches that I'm friends with so I didn't see him much. But then came along some "church" time where we got together as churches to talk about what we were learning/ dealing with over the weekend. He made some comments that were pretty mean, which I tried to ignore, but they really hurt. And I though, wow okay, maybe im just oversensitive right now, but 5 of the other six people took me aside in some way or another and asked if I was okay.

I think the one that was really eye opening for me was when one older guy came up and said, I couldn't figure out why he was being so mean to you till I realized you were his step son. He knew we were related but had forgotten because, as he said, he "couldn't even see any sort of relationship between us" and how if he had been up at camp with his son he would have been buddy-buddy running around and at least trying to do stuff together. So needless to say I was saddend. But it wasn't untill Buzzy got up and started reading "On God's Fridge" did I start crying.

God as the Dad I never had who hung up every thing I did on the fridge as a feeling of Joy and Pride over who I am and the life that I was living.

My hopes, my dreams, my heart, my passions, everything that wraps up who I am, held to the fridge with little colored magnets, excited about everything Im doing, and have yet still to do, celebrated at his kid, in all the glory of my twenty six years.

A Glimpse of Jesus

My wife and I recently started going to this 8-week marriage study at our church. Don't worry, our marraige isn't on the rocks or anything, we just would like to learn some good tools to keep us from ever getting to that point.

Anyways, I've been thinking about something that our pastor drew on a white board which I will try to recreate here.



He said from your same sex parent you get your sense of competency, from you opposite sex parent you get a sense of worth and from both of them you get your sense of belonging. We all probably have wounds in at least one of those areas if not all three. But in my particular case, I grew up with a mostly absent father, which means that to some extent I was missing out on a healthy helping of a sense of competency.

Now realize I’m not blaming my father or any thing for issues that I have. Rather I’m just opening a window on my though processes through the last couple of weeks as I've sought to root out some unhealth and to find healing for old wounds that I didn't realize were there.

My particular thought on that Tuesday night was, okay so dad wasn't around, I didn’t get this supposed dose of competency that I was supposed to get as a kid, but what are the normal compensation factors for that lack in a persons life and more specifically, in my own life.

I’m not sure what the normal ones are, but in my case, it’s a drive to be competent. At anything. It’s made me smart, cause I studied hard and read a lot of books. It made me good at a lot of weird things because I was always striving

But behind all of those outer doings, there has been an inner struggle over shame. I feel ashamed when something doesn’t work out or I can’t figure something out. There’s a feeling that if I just did “it” a little better some one might take notice of me and say something about it. Not that “it” was ever a fixed thing; just simply what ever I had happened to put my hands to that day. School was a perfect place for that. I excelled, I stood out, I got words of affirmation, and how God was going to do great things through me.

I realize that even though I'm seeing it more clearly, it has been about a two year process to get to this point, and the details aren’t important for this discussion but I ended up being in a place where as long as I was keeping up with and exceeding what I had previously done, I was praised, especially in ministry. And I found a lot of acceptance of my competence. As long as I kept up.

I think that’s maybe what hurts the most. When I stopped rushing headlong into the fray, almost every one else passed me by, gone on to take care of other things. Some of these relationships have been restored; others are coming around, and others still I have little hope for but in God’s power.

And its not like I’ve been healed from these feelings of shame. They are still there, I recognize them, some times they get me down, and I don’t always know what to do about them. I was supposed to be somebody, right? Did I, like the wayward son, squander away my inheritance? Did I miss some opportunity or do something wrong? And when I'm faced with not even being able to provide real well for my family, these feelings intensify.

In the last couple of months I have faced more rejection than I really care to think about with the job situation. Most people might get sad that they didn’t get a job or what ever. To me it feels like a personal rejection of who I am. I’ve always gotten jobs I’ve wanted. They fall in my lap. People desire me or at least my skill set to be apart of things they are doing. Maybe this is why I'm going through this, because its time to move on from this place.

I wrote last time about brokenness, God only moving when people were broken, and my wife asked me if I was broken yet, I had no answer because I wasn’t sure what I needed to be broken from.

It’s prideful self-confidence that masks itself through nonchalantness.
It leads to self-reliance and impatience to wait on the lord.
It leads to planning and scheming and trying to guess how to be ready for whatever life throws my way.

The key to brokenness as I see it is the careful application of truth to my life through the Word of God, implanted by the Spirit so that I might actually accept the Father’s love and acceptance without the feeling I must earn His respect, before He calls me son.


A Glimse of Jesus is a book I have started reading. He calls Jesus "the stranger to self-hatred" and calls us to be the same, to acknowledge our weaknesses and yet still walk in the truth of our position as sons of God.

“Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones…”

I was reading through the first couple of chapters of Exodus, where the Israelites are becoming more and more oppressed by pharaoh and the Egyptians. What were they doing? It seems they were making brinks and building cities. I’m not sure I follow Pharaoh’s reasoning in scripture, but he gets afraid at the copious numbers of Israelites in the land, that they might side with the enemies of Egypt in some future war, and decides to work them hard, get rid of the male children and put slave masters over them. So the people get oppressed and cry out to God. So God snaps his fingers and smotes the Egyptians right? Not quite. During this time a baby gets born, and through a set of unforeseen circumstances becomes Pharaoh’s daughter’s adopted child. Moses lives the Egyptian equivalent of the high life and pretty much is either ignorant to or indifferent to the plight of his people. At some point in his adult hood he gets caught killing an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite and flees the country. He marries, has children, and then God appears to Moses in a burning bush, 40 years after his escape from Egypt. After leaving Egypt, the people wandered in the wilderness for 40 more years and then Moses dies at the ripe old age of 120 just before the people cross into the Promised Land. (Just a side note, during the wilderness wanderings they had to, on average, bury eighty-two people a day- thanks Tony)

So it was early and I had to think about it but that makes Moses about 80 years old when he goes down to Egypt to set free the Israelites. And unless I missed something, the oppression that the people were crying out to God about had been going on some time before that. So for at least 80 years, but probably more, the people languished in despair.

“Then the LORD told him, "You can be sure I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries for deliverance from their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. 8 So I have come to rescue them from the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own good and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey-the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites live. 9 The cries of the people of Israel have reached me, and I have seen how the Egyptians have oppressed them with heavy tasks. 10 Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You will lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."” Exodus 3:7-10

I imagine my self in the same situation. I’ve forgotten about my people, their needs their struggles or at least ignored them long enough for it them to become nothing more than a passing thought. I have a wife, I am on good terms with the in-laws, and even have some kids and sheep and land. I’m comfortable. Then God comes along and says, “I have heard their cries for deliverance”. What? Now you’ve heard their cries? Now, when I’m comfortable? I’m eighty, I’m supposed to be traveling around in an RV and collecting souvenirs from around the Sinai. Seriously God, go pick on someone else.

I’ve always heard the story of Moses conversation with God taught as, Moses was reluctant because he really wasn’t skilled or he was shy or humble. I think he was lazy. God please, please, please send any one else. And then he gave all these excuses why someone else should do it. Finally God gets mad and sends Aaron the Levite (wait how does Moses know who his Levite brother is)

But why does God wait eighty-plus years to bring his people out of captivity…
This is the question I kept coming back to in my head.

But first skip ahead a little bit. (Past the part about God going to kill Moses cause his son wasn’t circumcised, weird stuff but I have a thought about it for my next post)

Moses talks to pharaoh and pharaoh decides to make it harder on the Israelites not easier- didn’t we all see that one coming. And does Moses get thanked for trying to help them. Yeah right, they get their ropes in a knot. Then Moses cries out to God and God says that he is still going to help them (This is a short paraphrase of a chapter of Dialog)
Then Moses goes to the people and again tells them what God said

Chapter 6, Verse 9
Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

And when I think back to question about why does God wait so long, it seems like at this point he has waited too long. The people have been broken by their slavery. Not just in bondage. Bondage implies oppression, and oppression often brings hope for the future, hope for release and hope for change. But the Israelites were broken.

I have all these biblical themes running through my head
Stories of Exile and Oppression by Babylon, Greece, and Rome
The waiting and the longing for a deliverer in times of trouble
The hope of a coming Messiah to establish Israel for good

And I even think, yes that gives me hope, God is going to come through; he’s done it before and he’ll do it again. And so I hold on to that last scrap of hope. But I think even that misses the mark.

I think God waits till people are broken to fix them.

It seems wrong, like God is almost a bad guy, and I guess I will have to untangle all my thoughts about it over the next couple of days, but I couldn’t escape my own thoughts.

God waits till people are broken to fix them.

God waits till I am broken to fix me.

Kenya

I remember my first night at the hospital. I had taken all the classes, learned the medicine and the only thing that I had left to do was actually put what I had learned into practice. I was 20 years old and for about the first hour of my shift I was pretty dumbfounded. I walked around looking, but not saying much. Blood, contusions, brokenbones, coughing, crying, moans. All of these thing were going on and I was slightly overwelmed. I rember the first thing that I did, I cleaned up the floor under a lady who had been shot. It wasnt the glamorus thing it was kinda gross, here i was with all my Emegency Medical Training and I was cleaning the floor. But it got me moving. It got me doing something and by the end of the night I had worked with all sorts of patients, drug addicts, criminals from the jail, done CPR 3 times and a bunch of other things.

And right now Im feeling that sorta dumfounded feeling again. As alot of you know I have been looking for work for the last few months. I applied for a job at ELI that seems like a great fit for me and Im eager to start, where I would, among other things, be a sort of short term missions team pastor helping with training and tending to thier needs spititually to prepare them for going to Africa and to encorage them and help them through the spiritual issues they might have at their return. I have already interviewed with the staff but have yet to interview with Don since he is in Africa.

The issue is that over night Kenya has erupted in violence. Churches have burned and the media is using terms like "ethnic cleansing". The last report I heard on Don is that they are trying to get him and his family out of the country, but that their centers in Kenya are becoming refugee camps for people who are excaping the violence, some with only the clothes on their back. If you are reading this please pray for peace in Kenya. Im not sure what else they might need from us. I have emailed the US office of ELI to see if they have physical needs. Im sure they will need money to rebuild that which was lost and to buy food since in times of unrest, the cost of everything goes up.

Here's ELI's Blog to read about what they are facing incountry.
http://empoweringlives.blogspot.com/

Here's another missionary's blog in kenya that highlights some detailed descriptions of what is actually happening in Kenya since the government closed down the news in or out of the country. http://www.dlipparelli.blogspot.com/