Texas Cru Blog

The Grace of Hearing

2006-04-09T23:31:00.000-05:00

by Todd Stewman

“This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good!”—Aslan in The Magician’s Nephew

Have you ever stopped to consider what a gift it is to hear the voice of God in your life? God is not silent. He has spoken in the past at many times and in various ways. But, in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. However, not everyone hears the clear voice of Jesus Christ. Some may hear vague growlings that cause them to wonder about the idea of deity. Others may hear fearful roarings that cause them to run and hide from the perceived threat to their own sovereignty. Only God, though, can enable a person to hear and discern what the Lion of Judah is saying. This is grace. A God who speaks to a people who, left to themselves, would only close their ears to Him.

“‘For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.”—Matthew 13:15-16

“…his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”—John 10:4

If you follow Jesus Christ, it is because you have heard His voice. Your ears have been divinely tuned to receive what He is saying. He speaks to you by His written Word and He speaks to you by His Spirit. But, you only notice, you only understand, and you only care about what He is saying because of His grace toward you. This is certainly cause for worship! It is also cause to cultivate your ability to listen for His voice in the midst of our noisy world. I’d love to know what you have been hearing from God through His Word.

Cru Notes

2006-03-06T14:25:00.000-06:00

Editor's Note: If you miss our weekly gathering (Tuesday nights, Garrison 1) you're missing some important thoughts on life and Godliness. If you miss class you can always copy someone else's notes... and while it's not nearly the same as being there, it's still helpful. With that in mind Annie Correa and Stephanie Dang will be sharing their notes from most Cru meetings. Read them for the first time, or by way of continuing to think about the things you heard last Tuesday. Add any of your own thoughts or fill in things they missed by way of your comments.

CHRIS THURMAN - INTIMACY IN RELATIONSHIP
the notes of Annie Correa, February 28, 2006.

REVIEW FROM LAST WEEK: Intimate relationships require integrity. To practice integrity you have to figure out and hold onto who God meant you to be and let go of the things that God never meant to be true of you.

THIS WEEK: Intimacy – closeness, fondness. Intimacy is the deepest thirst of your soul, your deepest ache. God wired you for intimacy. Our culture lies to you and says your deepest thirst is for power, money, and sex. These things do not satisfy people’s soul, only intimacy does.

Intimacy exists in two forms:

[1] With God (vertically): My soul won’t find rest until it finds it in Thee. Everyone has this ache for intimacy with the Maker; whether they acknowledge it or not.
[2] With other people (horizontally): This is God-wired (something we should hold on to). In Genesis, when God is talking about His creation, He says the first negative thing about what He created. He says …it is good…it is good…it is good…but that it is NOT good for the man to be alone.
[a] Adam’s relationship with God was perfect, there was no sin in the world
[b] Adam’s lived in a perfect world
[c] Adam had the perfect job, he was given the planet to oversee
but something is missing…so God creates Eve.

The abundant life is a close relationship with God and with other people. You are wise if you are working on both and a fool if only working on one or neither. To have a close relationship with another YOU MUST meet each other’s emotional needs.

You Cannot Earn:

[1] God’s love: God is love, He will not change this about Himself; cannot raise or lower His love.
[2] Salvation: Salvation comes in spite of our own efforts. Your most righteous behaviors are like filthy rags to God. Even your tears of sorrow over your sins are impure.
[3] Worth: We are given worth because we are God’s image bearers. You won’t have more or less down the road.
[4] Identity: We were born as a child of sin,when saved we became a child of God.

Everything else in this world must be earned!
We can’t ask God to grant us physical fitness or financial fitness, we must earn them. In this same way we must earn closeness with each other. Meet each other’s needs: we must serve.

Our Emotional Needs:
Attention, Acceptance, Affirmation, Appreciation, Affection, Comfort, Encouragement, Respect, Security, Support, and Understanding.

These are God-wired needs. You will injure yourself and others if you don’t realize that you have these needs and that other people have these needs too. We are called to love richly and deeply. Our rewards await us in Heaven. When we meet others’ emotional needs, it communicates that they are worthy.

What Happens When Our Emotional Needs Go Unmet?
Our emotional needs will go unmet. Even the best parent, husband, friend, is human won’t meet them all perfectly. We respond by feeling hurt and angry. God wired us this way. It’s okay to feel this way, the wrong comes in how we deal with these emotions. We often fall into destructive coping, that is we cope sinfully. Never apologize for what you are wired for (needing closeness, having emotional needs, and feeling hurt and angry when these needs aren’t met) but do apologize for coping destructively.

When Coping Destructively You Will Tend To:

[-] Isolate yourself
[-] Attack (sin in your anger by aggression)
[-] Be passive aggressive (cold shoulder, aloofness, sarcasm…)
[-] Self medicate (instant relief/gratification): idolatry, everyone in this room is an addict in some way.
[-] Perfection (try harder; legalism): people should not have to jump through hoops to have their needs met.

Being Christ-like means serving. Seeking to serve, not to be served. Do what you can to meet others’ emotional needs, knowing that you won’t necessarily have all of your needs met in return.

[AN ASIDE] Love:

[1] Eros: sexual attraction and interest. This is not the highest version of love.
[2] Phileo: fondness or liking. This isn’t the highest version of love.
(These two come together to form romantic love, which is a form of insanity, makes you act goofy.)
[3] Agape: highest form of love. God has perfect agape love for us. “An act of will aimed at fostering a person’s growth”:
[-] Act of will: decision not based on loins or heart
[-] Has an aim: not aimless, target specific
[-] Foster: you can’t MAKE people grow, Christ never controlled people
[-] A person’s: not a car or food
[-] Growth: not “making someone happy” God values your maturity over your happiness. He values your health and joy in the long-term, at the expense of making you uncomfortable in the mean time.

Cru Notes

2006-02-26T16:20:00.000-06:00

Editor's Note: If you miss our weekly gathering (Tuesday nights, Garrison 1) you're missing some important thoughts on life and Godliness. If you miss class you can always copy someone else's notes... and while it's not nearly the same as being there, it's still helpful. With that in mind Annie Correa and Stephanie Dang will be sharing their notes from most Cru meetings. Read them for the first time, or by way of continuing to think about the things you heard last Tuesday. Add any of your own thoughts or fill in things they missed by way of your comments.

CHRIS THURMAN - INTEGRITY IN RELATIONSHIP
the notes of Annie Correa, February 21, 2006.

INTEGRITY
Integrity produces intimacy. Integrity will make or break intimacy. If you’re not getting along with someone the problem is probably one of integrity. You can’t have intimate relationship without integrity. Let relationships end before you violate integrity. To have integrity means two things:

[1] You must hold on to those things about yourself that God meant you to be. Do not EVER let go of that in order to please another human being or keep them in your life. // Who did God make me to be? // “To thy “God-created-self” be true”

[2] You must let go of those things about yourself that God never meant you to be. The things that are wrong with you, your flaws.

Both holding on and letting go take courage.

We believe that God knit us together in our mother’s womb, that we were fearfully and wonderfully made, but that we all fall short of this original creation.

There are a lot of grey areas in figuring out the things we should hold on to and let go of in our lives. We must be spirit lead to discern whether to hold on or let go. Something can go from one category to another and can even be in both categories.

INDIVIDUATION:
A father should help his child know who they were and weren’t meant to be. If you know who you are meant to be you don’t have the fear of man and don’t need other people’s approval. You should know that:

[1] You have internalized a proper IDENTITY
-Identity is not the same thing as role (jock, nerd, so-and-so’s brother…), we are more than our roles.
-You have a God-given identity: Child of God

[2] You have internalized sense of WORTH
-our worth is not tied to our performance (though this is what we tend to think)
-but we have worth because we are image-bearers

[3] You have a PERSONALITY
-we all have different ones
-it’s okay to be who you are

[4] God gives everybody TALENTS AND ABILITIES
-God does not equally give out talent and ability, take what He gave you and use it
-to whom much is given, much will be expected (Luke 12:48)

[5] God gives us PASSIONS
-our passions don’t always line up with what we’re good at
-if you are good at something you are passionate about that’s something you should hold on to.

If you don’t know these things you feel like you have to find your from the world. This gives you anxiety and makes you incapable of healthy relationships. No one wants to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t know who they are.

ASSIGNMENT:
Write two essays (or construct two lists) answering the following:

[1] Who did God make you to be?

[2] Who have you become that God did not intend you to be?

Whittled

2006-02-06T12:23:00.000-06:00

by Patrick Frasier

There is a driving force within all of us that makes us want to continually strive to be a better person. Even if we are happy with the changes we have made in our lives, we have a cricket on our shoulder shouting out an infinite amount of blurbs making sure we don’t regress.

Colorado is my God place. It is virtually impossible to seclude yourself these days because of email or because a cell phone ring destroys any chance of productivity that alone time might bring. I only bring that up because in Colorado I get no cell phone reception and have no computer. It’s really a beautiful thing. Trees, river, me, God. That’s all that’s there and that why I like it. My grandparents have a house in southern Colorado right on the Rio Grande River. If the river rose 10 feet their front deck would be in the water.

So I go to this place to hang out with God. No interruptions. I had a feeling something big would happen this past summer during my visit. I think that maybe because I was expecting a big epiphany, that when God spoke I missed it.

I was sitting with my grandpa at the kitchen table looking at all of his amazing carvings that line the giant windows that overlook the river. I asked him how he did it. How did he go from a simple block of wood to a mountain man, a longhorn, a fisherman, a cowgirl or any of the other elaborate objects that were before us. He said, “Well Patrick, it’s kind of simple, I know what I’m going to make so whatever doesn’t look like it I take off.”

It’s that simple? I don’t know about you, but to me all of that sounds crazy. Sharp knives and different varieties of wood, fancy names for cutting techniques and all it boils down to is taking off whatever doesn’t look right? The only epiphany I had that day was that my 80-year-old grandfather is an amazing man.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the deck watching my grandpa whittle and listen to him tell stories about Colorado, superstitions about carving wood and other things only 80-year-old men can say out of experience. I thought about what he said, “I know what I’m going to make so whatever doesn’t look like it I take off.” I thought about it for months. It wasn’t until I heard a talk about the Holy Spirit that it began to make sense to me.

Most people forget about the Holy Spirit. They focus on God the Father, and claim Jesus as their savior, but I never really hear much about the Holy Spirit. That’s the part of God that’s in us as followers of Christ. He’s constantly trying to show us the light, the way to righteousness, the way to be closer to God, the way to be more like Jesus. I thought, "it is that simple.” We just have to let the Holy Spirit carve us. We have to allow the parts that are not like Jesus to be cut away. Whatever is not a part of the person God made us to be, we can just take it off. So you’re a negative person? Cut. Done. We have to have faith that with the Holy Spirit in us and with our love of Jesus, we are capable of anything.

We Win

2006-02-02T21:59:00.000-06:00

by Cristina Mojica

Lately I have been bogged down with thoughts of how my life should have been. I had expectations of life at twenty, but nothing is lining up. Everything the world said I would have by now didn’t come to pass; but something better came into my life, I fell in love with Christ.

I’m not going to really talk about that process or the journey, that’s another post (or several), but what I want to talk about is how my expectations have been causing unnecessary tension in my life. In a few days I’m going to be twenty, and for some reason this has put me into a funk rivaling the one Walker went through when he became thirty. My reaction to this farewell to my teenage days has brought me to tears and left me with an unsettling feeling that would suggest twenty is the end of life. Which is ridiculous.

So yesterday, I’m contemplating why things are so difficult, and I can’t understand why, even though I know the truth, my life doesn’t reflect it. I’m not letting go of my pride and ambition with joy because I no longer have to be perfect. I’m not cheering at the top of my lungs because there is freedom in Christ because He died and rose again. I’m not satisfied with being the righteousness of God in Christ. I’m worrying about why my life isn’t the way I had planned it.

At the height of desperation, I flipped through the pages of my Bible. I was looking for the verse that says God’s power is made perfect in my weakness. I thought it might give me the perspective I needed. Instead I found Romans 8:18-39; I read through the passage aloud and the pieces started fitting together:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

The passage goes on, but the first verse already encouraged me. My suffering is nothing compared to the glory God has revealed in me through Jesus Christ. These desires for normalcy are remnants of the person I was, trying to gain control over who I am in Christ. The mental fight I go through daily is a result of my sinful nature. The very reason I’m not perfect. And my redemption, my only hope of survival is my relationship with Christ:

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7)

It wasn’t until I heard Matt Carter speak on the power of the Cross tonight, that it all hit home. I can’t breakdown the talk because I couldn’t do it justice. I’ll just let you know what I got out of it. (I suggest going and listening to the sermon in a few days when it gets put up on the church website.)

Matt made two statements that really resonated with what I was going through:

[1] Personal gain pales in comparison to what Jesus did on the Cross.
[2] Personal defeat loses its sting in relation to what Jesus did on the Cross.

And Matt’s application for the night – “We win!” It was finished on the Cross, and it was determined long before in the garden of Eden:

And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel. (Gen 3:15)

That’s exciting news! That is something to cheer about! Everyone loves a winner. Most of Austin jumped on the bandwagon of the Rose Bowl victory. The celebrations went on long after the game. So I don’t see why we can’t bask in the glory of the victory of Christ all the longer. The cause is more worthy, the truth runs deeper and the Victor deserves his recognition above any man or woman on earth.

My application of tonight’s talk is to repeat “We win!” until my life starts reflecting my belief in Christ’s victory. Because as soon as I forget that in Christ the victory has been won and Satan has lost his power over God’s children, I fall back into a state of defeat. We win, children of God! Let’s start living our lives like we believe that.

Finding God's Will

2006-01-23T19:09:00.000-06:00

An American Evangelical Obsession
by Jonathan Dodson

Editor's note: Jonathan is a recent graduate of Gordon-Conwell and a friend of a friend. This post first appeared on his blog The Creation Project. He has some good thoughts, which we thought we'd share with you:

Our culture is obsessed with the notion of choice. This becomes especially apparent when you’ve been out of the country for a while. I can remember returning to the states after spending a couple of months in the hills of Northern Thailand and Burma. My first trip to Target was overwhelming. I distinctly recall standing on the toothpaste isle overcome. There must have been 40 different choices. I felt immobilized by the number of options. However, it didn’t take long for me to settle back into the decision-driven, choice-filled ways of our culture. We have an abundance of choice in America. This past week when I was in Texas, our rental car had XM satellite radio. There were 100s of channels to pick from. There was XM1 and XM2 including a station for every major city, news station and even sports teams. Cable TV offers well over a 150 channels and that’s not even the deluxe package. Much of our time is spent weighing our options, balancing pros and cons, whether it’s picking out toothpaste, choosing what channel to watch, renting a movie or selecting what college course to take. Americans spend more time shopping than any other society. They frequent shopping malls more often than houses of worship and 93% of teenage girls say that shopping is their favorite activity. So, in a decision-driven culture what frequently figures foremost is our life choices, US! He is a means to an end, the end of our choices. In fact, comparison shopping fuels the sense of self, the rush of choice, the power of purchasing. It is inevitable that this shopping-soaked, decision-driven culture will influence our perception of God and his will.

Projecting our consumerism and decision-driven lifestyles onto God’s will, we continue our obsession with choice. We seek God for answers, directions, “wisdom” BUT we do not seek God for God! We end up treating God like a Mall Information Booth Attendant. He is not a person to relate to, to know, to understand and enjoy, to worship; He is there to give us direction. We cry out to God, “Just show me where the GAP is so I can get there!” Other times we treat God like a comparison shopping chart or website. He exists to help us line up the products and possibilities of life, compare and contrast their features and options, and wallah- we make our choice! God is not the ultimate comparison shopping chart or website, dispensing wisdom for us to make decisions about what kind of toothpaste, computer, or movie we want to buy or what elective to take. God’s will for us is infinitely greater than supplying directions or narrowing down choices. Desiring help in deciding what God wants us to do with the myriad of choices set before us is understandable. Life is complex and God is sovereign and wise. And yes, God is sovereign over every hair of your head, but does not mean that He is constrained to tell you where it will part or fall. Often God is not primarily concerned so much with what we choose but how we choose it and with whom. God’s will for us is much greater than helping us execute a series of decisions to be made in mapping out our lives. Which raises the question, what is His will and how do we respond to it?

Pass Christian, December.

2005-12-22T00:00:00.000-06:00

There was a pretty extensive feature in the New York Times on Tuesday about Pass Christian, and the clean-up effort there. The article and accompanying pictures and video essay focus mainly on the tent city that's been erected there for those that FEMA was unable to provide trailers or other housing options for. It's worth a read:

In Mississippi, Canvas Cities Rise Amid Hurricane's Rubble
[NY Times]

It seems like a long time since sixty of us piled into a bus and headed down there for a few days, but I think there will for a very long time be a piece of our hearts that remain down on the Mississippi coast. Keep Pass and the people there in your prayers this Christmas.

Hymn for Thought

2005-11-10T16:01:00.000-06:00

This is an ongoing feature here at the Texas Cru Blog. Our faith has a rich history, a deeply meaningful past, which is well reflected in the hymns of the church. The poetic and complex nature of these songs of praise pull us outside of our tiny indivdualized worlds into the very heavens in which God resides. It's the stuff of romance. Read the words; once, twice, three times over. Take some time to meditate. Take a second to write a comment: what do these words mean to you?

THY MERCY MY GOD
the words of John Stocker

Thy mercy my God is the theme of my song
The joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last
Hath won my affection and bound my soul fast

Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here
Sin soon would reduce me to utter despair
But through Thy free goodness my spirits revive
And He that first made me still keeps me alive

Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground
And weep to the praise of the mercy I've found

Great Father of mercies! Thy goodness I own
And the covenant love of Thy crucified Son
All praise to the Spirit whose whisper divine
Seals mercy and pardon and righteousness mine!

Jesus and QED

2005-11-04T00:10:00.000-06:00

The Light (Part 5)
by Cabe Matthews

What Joseph is talking about in his post is Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). It is the quantum study of electromagnetic interactions, and if you look it up on the internet and try to figure it out it should completely blow your mind. It’s the process of these virtual photons in QED being exchanged that makes chemistry work and even stranger processes (Quantum Chromodynamics) that actually hold nuclei of atoms, and even protons and neutrons themselves together. These sciences consist of many results that are difficult to visualize, and a number of equations that are literally impossible to solve exactly.

A lot of people have devoted their lives to the study of QED and related subjects, but no one really understands it all completely. There are a plethora of good ideas and methods in physics that work well with experiment, but as a whole modern quantum theory doesn’t really jive well with gravity quite like it should the way we currently understand it, and there are a number of other questions that are also left unanswered. QED itself is actually the simplest of all quantum field theories, but everyone pretty much agrees that the knowledge that we have of it is incomplete and imperfect, and although one day we as humans may be able to understand QED, we won’t ever completely understand the ways of our God.

The great physicist Richard Feynman (certainly one of the smartest men to have lived in the last 100 years) once said, “Nobody understands quantum theory”, and I think this is also very true of God. I think the biggest problems occur when people decide that they have God and His will figured out. If someone thinks they have God figured out then they can’t be taught, not by God or anyone. This is because if they think that way then in their heads they are basically in a position in their lives where God doesn’t really have anything to offer them. They kind of know everything and have it figured out, and whether they appear to be the best church going Christian ever or not they are effectively living as an atheist. They don’t need God because they are smart enough to be their own God.

They can also do another dangerous thing. Since they have God figured out and they know everything then of course they can take God and tack Him onto their own agenda. The name of God can be used to improve their position in society, support what might otherwise be an unpopular decision or just make them feel right all the time and better than everyone else around them.

I think when you really boil it down this is the biggest problem that people like Job’s Friends and the Pharisees and David Koresh and Hitler and Medieval Crusaders and even I ever have had. We tend to put God in a box and pull Him out to show everyone only when it’s beneficial to us. This is really stupid because I don’t think a god small enough to fit in the box I often try to keep him in would be enough to come up with the ideas that form the basis of physics or light or grasshoppers or mountains.

So a creation that at the most fundamental level is not understood by the most intelligent of humans must by logical necessity have been created by a being of considerably more complexity and beauty than that which He created. It is when we step back and admire this beauty of God and embrace the fact that we’ll never really understand Him at all that we are being the people who he made us to be – people who simply stand (and live) in awe of Him.

Light is often used in the Bible as a metaphor for a number of things, and one of them is truth and honesty. If you are “in the light” – in Christ, that is – then you will be honest about how much, or rather how little you really know.

That’s worship.

Pass Christian

2005-11-01T13:52:00.000-06:00

by Jason Stenhouse

I was in Pass Christian, Mississippi this weekend, helping some people clean up the destruction brought by Hurricane Katrina. My thoughts have been a jumble these past few days as I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what it is that I just took in. I have seen, though, a common thread running through my haphazard experiences and impressions. I have been reminded that God is faithful.

This year I have been trying to read the entire Bible, but I haven’t been keeping up with it. My Bible tells me that it is September 6th, but today is really October 30th. I’m a little behind. It’s good though, because God often orders things in a specific way, so that He may speak to us. He brought me to the book of Joel today. I don’t know of any other book that is more fitting theme-wise for our experience over the weekend.

Joel tells of a great day of judgment in Israel. A great army of locusts have come to destroy all that is green in Israel. “The great locusts have eaten…The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree—all the trees of the field—are dried up. Surely the joy of mankind is withered away” (1:4, 12). The people are mourning, for there is nothing left. I find that these locusts are a great picture for Katrina and the destruction that she has caused down on the coast. There is almost nothing left in Pass Christian except maybe a sense of sorrow. It is as if a nuclear bomb went off, bringing everything down.

But in the midst of all this, Joel proclaims a message of hope: “‘Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning…’ and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (2:12, 32). And with this salvation, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten…You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed” (2:25, 26). What truth, that in all this sorrow and destruction God is still calling out to all who would come to Him. He is just screaming, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). There is hope in every situation, even in the dimmest of places; even in Pass Christian.

First Things First

2005-10-26T13:16:00.000-05:00

by Matt Leung

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33

Inevitably, when I read this scripture, the first thing that comes to mind is a certain song I used to sing at church camp. Putting things to song isn’t in and of itself bad (it’s a really great way to remember the 50 states, in alphabetical order, for example). The problem for me in this case is that this catchy song has reduced the power of this verse into a simple melody, undercutting the profound statement it is. If you were to actually look into my life, it looks nothing like seek first the kingdom of God... Truthfully, if you wrote lyrics descriptive of me they would read something more like:

Seek my goals and benefits first,
Then if I have free time, maybe, I might go and seek God’s kingdom,
Women echo: (But only if it doesn’t require much work, Amen.)

At church this Sunday God hit me with Matthew’s words and it got me thinking. I began to wonder if I believed this verse. From a logical perspective I really can’t argue against the falseness of it. It doesn’t contradict anything from the Bible, or contrast with what I’ve learned to be true. It simply states that: Seek God = A, all else = B, and if you do A, then B will happen.

My next thought was that maybe this is an idea that God wants us to take metaphorically and not literally, like when Jesus said I should gouge out my eyes if they’re causing me to sin. I mean God can’t seriously expect me to do this. My head says “I have 3 tests this week, so that means spending less time with God and studying first,” or “I’ve never mentioned Christ to this friend, if I mention it now, it could be really weird, so I’ll just not.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that seeking God’s kingdom cannot involve writing your paper or that sometimes it might not be best to bring up Christ in a conversation; but in my life, I have taken my own initiative in doing what I want first and finding time for God later. Because of this, I have noticed I hardly ever find time for God later. I’m too consumed with finding that perfect internship, looking for a recommendation, or keeping my reputation to worry about God’s kingdom. I find myself doing the things I want to first and then if I have time I seek God’s kingdom.

So, for me it’s more like I’ll do B (everything else) and if time permits I’ll do A (seek God and His kingdom). However, when I do things using my own equation, I end up not doing A at all, my time consumed by all of the B things, only to find out later that my pursuits were rather selfish and unproductive. My life is all about the B things, but I’m finding out those everything else pursuits don’t really bring me the happiness I imagined they would. Doing things my way has helped me realize that many of the B things in my life, like seeking a high GPA and a good letter of recommendation, stockpiling popularity, and living a life of comfort and safety don’t really bring me much worth holding onto.

I’m starting to wonder what it would look like to take this verse literally – to move it out of my mind and into my actions. This would mean I would look for God first, and then all else would be taken care of, a much different perspective than what I have now. It would mean trying to show God to the world, even when I’m having a horrible day. It might mean talking to a friend about Christ when it could be very awkward. It would, I think, require changing my entire schedule so that my attention is on God first and on my other ambitions second. And according to the equation (seek God first, and the other things second) the other things will be taken care of. This seems a little illogical, but then again what I am doing now (the “logical” way) doesn’t really seem to be bringing me joy and peace.

All along I have thought that doing B would make me happy, but recently I’ve come to realize that B – seeking my goals – will only make me happy if those things are continually trumped by A – seeking God. It seems that living out this scripture would require tons of faith, but I guess I should just dive in; because, the “illogical” thing to do would be to continue doing things the way I’m doing them now, feeling miserable as a result.

The Light (Part 4)

2005-10-23T22:09:00.000-05:00

by Joseph Simmons, physicist

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good….” (Genesis 1:1-4)

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’” (John 8:12)

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:5)

“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9)

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” (Colossians 1:16-17)

When creating a spiritual analogy for the physical phenomenon of light one mostly thinks of sight and purity and possibly that light is needed in the physical world because it is the source of nearly all the energy we use and consume, among other things. However there is a necessity found in light that is far more fundamental and urgent than all of these things, and therefore I think worth mentioning.

Physically, when light is spoken of perhaps two different things are meant by it. Most commonly when we talk about light we’re talking about luminosity – that is visible light that is emitted by an object that allows us to see it as well as see other things. Light is also spoken of as electromagnetic waves, or things that are sufficiently equivalent. Now there is no difference between the two of these except that when you think of seeing something you probably don’t think of phrases like electromagnetic fields or forces or photons. However I think an important analogue can be found when thinking of these phrases.

Consider atoms, which consist of electrons and nuclei. Atoms come together to form molecules, which come together to form practically everything we observe and interact with. Some interesting questions are: “What hold atoms together?” and “Why are molecules formed?” and “What gives things their shape?” The answers are, of course, that light holds the electrons in atoms and light forms molecules and therefore determines the shape of things (light also keeps us from falling when we’re grounded). If we’re in a place without a sufficiently luminous object then we can’t see anything, but if light didn’t exist inside of us, we wouldn’t be held together and therefore wouldn’t be capable of seeing at all, we wouldn’t exist at all.

In the Bible we see references to light as something that shines so that we may see and something that deals with purity. However, I think we may find more to light than the analogy of seeing. Because of Christ we may see. But Christ is light, not merely a lamp. So by Christ we are held together and are given our form. By him all things consist and have their being.

The Light (Part 3)

2005-10-22T19:29:00.000-05:00

by Brett Westervelt

Light is really the core of life. Take away the sun and we would return to dust much more quickly than normal. Alive, my ability to see is only as good as the quality of the light shining on and around whatever I’m trying to look at.

I take the light in my life fairly for granted – with the sun by day and the light bulb (in all its glorified forms) by night. These are faithful, reliable resources that fade into the background when competing with the more pressing thoughts so often on my mind. Light stands idly by, foundational but forgotten, hardly spiritual.

I wonder if this explains a divine purpose in the rising and the setting sun. Each morning the sun makes a glorious return, each evening a vaunted exit. The light arrives, but it will not be ours to tame. It vanishes, but we can rest, hopeful of its return.

Photographers call the light in the hours right around the sun’s entrance and exit magic light, because at these times of day their subjects take on a surreal, otherworldly character. The best pictures are taken during these hours, they freeze things at their most sacred moments. There’s something spiritual about changing light. It’s magical, it’s mystical.

Take any field outside of town as an example. It’s remarkable that some grass, some rocks, and a few trees can shift from being unseen and unknowable to dreary and dead to aglow and alive, based on how a few rays interact with these idly placed objects. It’s humbling to admit that this is true of our own lives as well. It certainly puts Jesus – the light to live life by, as John calls Him - in His place.

The Light (Part 2)

2005-10-21T15:43:00.000-05:00

by Jason Stenhouse

Color is strange. Some thoughts about the colors black and white.

I usually think of things that are black as being evil or dark, while things that are white I consider being good or holy/clean. The color black is caused by objects absorbing all the light that is shining on them, while white objects are reflecting all of the light. The black objects don't give anything back, they just keep sucking; kind of like a black hole. The white objects give everything back, all of the light that is shining on them.

I think that's kind of neat. I also think that it is neat that God calls Himself light. Maybe these two colors with light could be a metaphor for how we are to be, as bearers of God's image. Jesus, as well as the saints in Revelation, are wrapped completely in white clothing. Possibly because they are perfectly reflecting all that God is. Reflecting His character and love: the very light that is shining on them.

I feel like God is calling us all to be wrapped in whiteness as well, reflecting all of who God is back out for others to see. The problem is that I all too often feel like a dense, black hole taking everything given to me but never giving anything back.

I don't think that I am completely black any longer, but I don't feel like I'm completely white either. Maybe I'm a shade of grey; reflecting bits and pieces of God's love and character outwards. I don't know.

The Light (Part One)

2005-10-20T23:30:00.000-05:00

This is the first in an ongoing discussion on light. We'll start with some outside thoughts that got us talking...

by Donald Miller
excerpted from the book Through Painted Deserts.

"In the Hebrew tradition, which splintered off into the Christian tradition, which is how I was raised, light is a metaphor. God makes a cosmos out of the nothingness, a molecular composition, of which He is not and never has been, as anything is limiting, and God has no limits. In this way, He isn’t, and yet is.

The poetic imagery is rather beautiful, stating that all we see and feel and touch, the hardness of dense atoms, the softness of a breeze (atoms perhaps loose as if in play) is the breath of God. And into this being, into this existence, God first creates light. This light is not to be confused with the sun and moon and stars, as they are not created until later. He simply creates light, a nonsubstance that is like a particle and like a wave, but perhaps neither, just some kind of traveling energy. A kind of magnetic wave. Light, then, becomes a fitting metaphor for a nonbeing who is...

...Consider the complexity of light; we see what it touches. It is more or less invisible, made from nothing, just purposed and focused energy, infinite in its power (it will never tire if fired into a vacuum, going on forever). How fitting, then, for God to create an existence, then a metaphor, as if to say, here is something entirely unlike you, outside of time, infinite in its power and thrust: here is something you can experience but cannot understand. Throughout the remainder of the Bible, then, God calls Himself light."

A Dangerous Confession

2005-10-13T15:54:00.000-05:00

Editor's Note: The following are some thoughts Tiffany had the other day that I thought might be the beginning of an interesting discussion. Read and then contribute your thoughts by way of the comments section. We'll see what happens.

by Tiffany Dang

I had a conversation with a friend last week that left me bothered. My friend mentioned that I talk about my sin a lot, and wondered why this was exactly. I generally trust what this friend perceives and says, and so I started to think about why I do this, why I talk about my sin so much.

I started to wonder if people perceive me as someone who can’t see past her sin, who dwells on it too much. If that is the case, then I would be taking away from what Jesus did on Calvary, but I don't think I do. I never want to get to a point where my sin is okay and I can live with it. I want to be someone who can see her sin for what it is. I want to be disgusted by it. I want to see that it is a relational crime against this person I claim to love. I want to see that it tears at the heart of my savior, because only then can I love him more.

If I don't understand how repulsive my sin is to the Father, then I don't understand my need. I don't understand why Jesus came and I can't fall in love with him because I can't grasp what grace is. I don't like seeing that I have areas in my life that are not what they should be. I don't like knowing that I'm not perfect and that I don't deserve Jesus in any way. I'd rather earn my way. But I am grateful that he is going to see me through and isn't going to leave me the way that I currently am. I love that there is hope in my story because I have claimed Jesus as my Lord. I often identify with the woman in Luke – I love Jesus all the more because I see what he chose to die for. He risked himself on me – someone who more often than not chooses to cheat on him and make him feel like he doesn't matter. And sometimes it doesn't faze me. And he knew that and he still chose to fight for my freedom.

When I recognize this, my response is to fall on my face and fall in love with him because I can't do anything but. I hope that makes sense. I probably didn't even need to tell you this. I am not a depressed person that thinks she's worthless, but I think I see what I would be had God not rescued me from myself and I'm glad that he's given me a new name. I'm a person seeking to walk with the Spirit and discover who I am to be...this person that his love has allowed me to be.

Outside Thought

2005-10-11T11:56:00.000-05:00

Every now and then we want to bring some outside voices into this modest forum of thought. Dallas Willard is head of the philosophy department at USC, and his writing and thoughts are insightful, not just in an academic sense but in a practical sense as well.

Stepping Into Community
Dallas Willard with Eric Hurtgen
Courtesy of RelevantMagazine.com

Dallas Willard is not a hurried or haunted man. When he speaks, his words come easy and natural, amended by a bit of southern lilt that traces him back to his rural Missouri roots. His pauses can feel like great gaping holes to an interviewer more accustomed to the dizzying pace of simultaneous high speed internet interaction and cell phone chatter. When Dallas Willard does answer, it seems to come from some deep place inside him, not just skimmed-off something from the surface.

Willard, of course, is an author and a teacher who's been thinking about God longer than most of us have been alive. Though his vocational calling is philosophy professor, if you have heard of him at all, it's probably not because of his provocative insights into phenomenology or his defense of standard formal logic. Most of his renown comes from his insistence on the primacy of Jesus' teaching for Christianity. In a recent interview from his home, Willard addressed the "seduction of technology" and "stepping into the community that already exists."

RelevantMagazine.com: I've been thinking about this year's high school graduates, and their experiences and how they're really the first full generation to never have experienced life without the internet and these tremendous integrated systems of ours. To what degree do you think that this kind of technology and connection helps or hurts Christian discipleship?

Dallas Willard: ...Well, I deal daily with college students and I have seen the seduction of technology. We live in a world where technology lifts mankind into a false sense of power and as a result my students have a feeling that if they can do something they should. They feel that they can go here, go there, shut that out, do what they want to, and that is the most seductive aspect to technology: it creates a false sense of intimacy and a false sense of sense of self.

Now, that need not rule out the use of technology, the bad aspects can be resisted, but you do need to have a place to stand in order to present yourself in a way that allows you to handle all the things that are coming at you. For example: games. For many young people this is just their life; they sit staring into some kind of screen endlessly, they come into class playing games, pretending they're taking notes. They become obsessed. And that's the difficulty: the obsession and the subsequent distraction that they experience.

We have this phenomenon of Attention Deficit that people are experiencing and diagnosing right and left. The problem is not deficit of attention but the distraction and splintering of attention. You almost never see a young person today who's paying attention to one thing. There are various devices that they're carrying and are plugged into and they just want to live in that world. All this amounts to a tremendous problem and we can describe it as the inner gathering of the self.

RM: The inner gathering of the self...?

DW: The inner gathering of the self just means that you have a chosen direction and your life is organized around it. What young people today, both Christian and non-Christian are experiencing is not a chosen direction, though there is the illusion that they are choosing. Rather, young people today are being constantly pulled by things that they submit themselves to. That's the great temptation and the great problem for many people today. Most don't even notice the temptation, but their lives are being pulled apart by it. And when it comes to issues of exercising character and will, it simply isn't there for them. They can only respond to things that are pulling at them.

Continue reading at RelevantMagazine.com

All Chained Up With No Place To Go

2005-10-09T22:55:00.000-05:00

OR Freedom From The Inside, Out

by Brett Westervelt

Stenhouse and I were sitting out on the patio at Peet’s the other day, taking in a little foretaste of fall weather divine, talking about the gospel and the resulting freedom that we’re supposed to feel from living under grace. It was for freedom that Christ has set us free.

We were talking about how hard it can be to actually feel set free from our depravity. It turns out that shouting “I’m free” at the top of your lungs doesn’t tend to get you much further than a few furrowed brows and some curious glances.

I told Jason that I found it interesting that we tend to measure the quality of our spiritual life by checklists of activities: church attendance, quiet times, minutes in prayer – easily quantifiable things, the rules and norms of Christendom. There’s not a whole lot that’s overtly relational in that list, not a whole lot that sounds like freedom. In fact we often feel utterly enslaved to these things, and to the expectations to be a good person, a certain Christian typecast. Instead of enjoying and figuring out how to be free, we have rushed to make up some new rules to follow. I think this might be because actual freedom is a bit unsettling. I’m free, so now what am I to do exactly? It’s nice to have a way to measure performance, to feel on top of things.

Stenhouse compared it to when Lincoln abolished slavery. All of these slaves, formerly with little hope and with no ability to make their own decisions were suddenly set free. They had opportunities, they could go anywhere, travel freely; and yet a fair number of these remained where they were as indentured servants. They had lived lives of slavery for so long that they had no concept of freedom.

A story in Mark’s gospel account came up, about when Jesus healed a demon-possessed man. According to Mark the man “lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him anymore, even with a chain; for he had often been retrained with shackles and chains, but the chains were wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones.”

This guy was a danger to himself and to the people living around him. Bruising himself with stones. Howling. The best the townspeople could think to do (to protect themselves, but also him) was to chain him up, to physically restrain him from tearing himself apart. His unchained freedom was wrecking havoc, and the best solution was outward force. Even if these chains had held (they hadn’t), this would have been a sad existence for this man: alone, on the outskirts of the city, living among the dead.

Jesus of course had different designs. He knew that the man’s troubles were internal – demons controlling his ravings – and he cast this Legion out. Jesus provided a lasting freedom for this man, an internal healing that allowed him to again be a part of the society around him. Jesus actually sent him back to the towns, to proclaim all that the Messiah had done for him – the mercy and freedom that Jesus had provided.

We live in America, “where at least I know I’m free.” The problem with the freedom that we experience is that it’s not so much freedom as a delicate balance between license and law – external forces that allow us to do what we want, selfishness and depravity in tow, as long as our actions don’t hurt others too badly. Those lines of permissibility are being continually redrawn, much like the hemlines of actresses in movies and on television. Cultural acceptability is continually being reformed.

Jesus was always valuing the internal over the external. Complaining of white-washed tombs and cups only washed on the outside, speaking to the heart of the law (love God and other people) more than the guises of it. He healed outcasts so that they could again be a part of their community; He forgave our sins so that we could again have a relationship with God, and so that we might experience relationships with others founded on the kind of enabling grace that fallen creatures such as ourselves need.

Instead of inner transformation we often run to external devices, our moral measuring tapes, unsure of what freedom entails. I wonder what we miss in our continued pursuit of slavery. Are the actions that we would label “Christian” a reflection of the internal freedom only Christ can provide, or are they simply a new set of chains and shackles, ones that won’t hold for long?

Hodgepodge

2005-10-07T18:10:00.000-05:00

A look inside the head of a 6'4" campus minister.
by Todd Stewman

Lately I’m really into the chicken flautas at Curra’s. This has become a favorite place for Amy and me…and I always get the flautas. You should go and you should get the flautas.

We found out on Wednesday that we are having another little girl! That makes tres chicas. Can one man possibly handle the sweetness being funneled my way? Although I’ve got mad Ving skills and uncanny football knowledge to pass on to a little boy, God (for some reason) wants me to be a dad of little girls. I can’t argue with that blessing.

If we don’t beat OU on Saturday, you may not see me around next week. Circumstances should not dictate my attitude, but I’m just sayin’.

Have you read Lamentations lately? The seriousness of sin and the magnitude of God’s judgment against it are powerfully expressed in this lament of Jeremiah. God’s compassion and grace are also right there in the middle of the fallenness…as always.

Fig Leaves and Circus Acts

2005-10-06T12:50:00.000-05:00

by Jason Stenhouse

Thinking of the fall and its far-reaching effects has led me to believe that life is a circus. And I’m not sure just how metaphorically I’m speaking.

When Adam and Eve were in the garden all was grand, but they ate of the fruit that they weren’t supposed to, severing relationship with God. When they took that first bite, truth and honesty got in the backseat and falsehood took the wheel. First they realized that they were naked and covered themselves with fig leaves; then they hid themselves from God. Mankind could no longer stand in honesty with one another or with God. The end result of all this was that we lost our innocence and became performance artists. It kind of sucks.

This is where the whole circus thing comes into play. The Big Top is about performance, a group of people amazing us with their freakish gifts and talents. The performers try and get the crowd wooing and aahing. I wonder though, if God has a hard time separating the show from the crowd.

I believe that a great tent was erected on the earth on the day when Adam and Eve rebelled against God. A cloth and canvas sky replaced the sun, hiding man from God; creating the perfect environment for men to perform for one another. We are all members of this circus. It’s how we all hide from each other. Most of us have a certain way we act around others, a certain trait we are known for. We base much of our identity on just how well we perform for others. This is the life of a circus act. The jugglers juggle and the clowns are funny. That’s who they are and if they aren’t filling their roles then they won’t be paid for long.

Some of us are considered the leaders in our pack; the ones who guide the way. When we aren’t in control we lose our cool, and we get down on ourselves. I think of these leaders as the animal trainers – they carry the whip and wear the fine clothing. They are in control of their environment; a loss of control means a loss of identity. There are many of us who are the jokers and clowns. We are the funny ones and if we’re not being funny, or others don’t get the joke we get depressed and search for other ways of being amusing. It’s how we are accepted. There are the jugglers who get lost in activity moving from one thing to the next. If they are not busy then they deem that something is wrong or missing. I fall all too often into the juggler’s shoes. And then there are the circus freaks. The ones who base their identity on their looks – whether good or bad. The beauty queens find identity in other’s admiring glances, while the dwarves and disfigured find identity in the curious looks. It’s all one big game of hiding.

Not everyone can be boxed up into one of these circus acts but we all do it. And there are many more roles where we find our identity. I do it everyday with every person I come across. I perform. I take turns at being the clown, the animal trainer, the juggler, and even the freak. I hide and I run. God came 2000 years ago to do away with this circus way of life. What if we could truly embrace Jesus’ way of living, take Him as our very identity? We wouldn’t need to hide anymore or perform. We would be complete. If the circus tent is falling, how will we respond?

When Being Saved

2005-10-04T23:52:00.000-05:00

by Tina Mojica

Being Saved! isn’t enough.

After many trials and tribulations about whether or not to see this “controversial” movie, I decided that it couldn’t hurt. Knowing that I myself had complaints about the Christian subculture, I was curious to see someone else’s take on it. I don’t in any way recommend this movie to everyone. It’s not for the faint of heart and it’s not for people who aren’t willing to see why this movie was made. As far as I can tell this movie is not about making fun of God or Jesus (which is a reason most people give for boycotting it); it is about making fun of those who say they follow Christ, but have become slaves to legalism and the desire to fit Christ into what the world loves; making Christ nothing more than an adjective to be placed before the latest trend and forgetting that Christ in and of himself is all that matters.

Lately in Cru we have been talking about the core of the gospel: Creation. Fall. Redemption. In these talks the focus has always been our relationship to Christ. No matter how much we like to think we are the center of the universe, if we say we are Christians we are to live our lives based on the truth that it’s all about Christ. Christian community finds itself stagnant when Christ is pushed aside and human desires are placed on the throne. Stagnation leads to apathy, which can lead to bitterness.

In Saved! we see this happen at American Eagle Christian High School, where Christianity is brought to a ridiculous extreme of pop culture references, false piety, and complacency. Those who claim to be “filled with Christ’s love” are the first to turn their back on a friend when she becomes pregnant outside of marriage. Instead of showing God’s love they use spiritual laws as a way to shun her out of good society and never once mention grace. They never venture to think of their own need for grace. Instead the main character finds love and compassion in the two people the school has deemed outcasts. Neither of these characters believes in Christ, but this does not keep them from showing love and compassion as Christ does.

Going into this movie I was expecting to be offended, but really I was just sad. The Christians in Saved! are not figments of the director's imagination, they exist in our everyday lives, and if we’re not careful we will become them. When we lose sight of Christ as the author and perfecter of our faith, when we forget that we were saved by grace and called to love one another as God loves us, when we forget that it’s not about my “success in the Lord” but about God’s glorifying Himself in our weakness, we set ourselves up to experience the fall all over again. When we decide to go through life on our own strength, and only use God as a magic talisman against the “heathens” of the world or as a get out of hell free card, we are no better off than Adam and Eve hiding from God in the garden after they betrayed Him. We try to use our good works and reputations to clothe ourselves, but really we’re still naked. We are in need of communion with a God who loves us and pursues us even when we run from Him.

Although the pitfalls seen in the Christian community of Saved! may seem farfetched, the snares are all around us and not so difficult to fall into. How do we avoid falling in? We invite God into every venture. We escape the bitterness and the feeling of being burdened by spiritual laws by praising and worshiping God for being faithful, patient, slow to anger and abounding in love. We don’t let ourselves become so comfortable with the idea of salvation that it is nothing more than fire insurance. Instead we live every day remembering Christ’s sacrifice on the cross because of His great love for us. We die to ourselves daily and treat others as better than ourselves, loving them as God loves us. And we always remember that it is we, that God called us to be a community and that it is as a body that we can stand up against the temptations of the world, living in the light as one in Christ.

Hymn for Thought

2005-09-28T12:47:00.000-05:00

This is the first in an ongoing feature here at the Texas Cru Blog. Our faith has a rich history, a deeply meaningful past, which is well reflected in the hymns of the church. The poetic and complex nature of these songs of praise pull us outside of our tiny indivdualized worlds into the very heavens in which God resides. It's the stuff of romance. Read the words; once, twice, three times over. Take some time to meditate. Take a second to write a comment: what do these words mean to you?

O LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET ME GO
the words of George Matheson

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Seeking?

2005-09-27T13:25:00.000-05:00

by Todd Stewman

We don’t really go looking for God. I think we like to think we do, because it seems more high-minded to be one who seeks after God. But, honestly, when I roll out of bed in the morning, I’m usually just seeking some coffee or a bowl of Raisin Bran. Translation: In my most authentic and unguarded moments, I’m just looking to take care of me and mine.

Abram was in Haran, simply minding his own business and his own stuff, when God approached him with a promise to bless all nations through him. Moses was walking around the desert, tending some sheep and listening to his iPod, when I AM called to him from a burning bush. Shortly thereafter, the average Israelite found himself walking across the bottom of the Red Sea on his way out of slavery, wondering, “Ummm…okay.” David was out of breath when he ran in from the fields on a seemingly normal day. Upon arriving at home, the sweaty teenager was anointed by God’s judge and God’s Spirit as the next king of Israel. Jeremiah was not yet an embryo when God appointed him as a prophet to the nations. The twelve disciples had to be reminded by Jesus that He chose them, not vice versa.

There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. How would it change my daily attempts to relate with God and live out my redemption if I genuinely acknowledged that I never went looking for God in the first place? He came looking for me and now He holds onto me by His grace. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. How would it change my daily interaction with other people if I genuinely acknowledged the fact that God graciously moved toward me, His enemy? When we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son.

When You Talk

2005-09-26T21:22:00.000-05:00

by Tina Mojica

Editor's note: Tina wrote this as a post for Will's Musings blog last semester. We wanted to republish it here and now because it's still such a good thought.

Lately all I’ve really wanted is to be known. I’ve told a lot of my friends this… hoping they would get the hint, but nobody really took the bait. It’s a good thing too— I mean I am relieved for them in a way -- because it’s asking a lot.

I don’t just want someone to know my favorite movie, or how I take my coffee (hypothetical since I don’t drink coffee), but I want someone to know about things that really matter to me: my dreams, my goals, some weaknesses (not all, but enough to avoid some unintentional harm such weaknesses might cause). I don’t really just want to be known. I want to be known, good and bad, and still be liked.

A friend of mine says that the worst form of loneliness is not that of being alone, but that of being unknown. I think we try to avoid this loneliness by pretending. We start developing personality traits that people attribute to us. If you are known for your sarcasm you play it up. If people think of you as the “cheery one”, you don’t let people know that you have bad days. By focusing on a few personality traits, we attempt to create an image we think others will like. If this image is accepted we can avoid loneliness, at least on the surface. The pretending usually continues until someone calls us on it, or we get tired of playing.

I pretend best with sarcasm. Many people like to say they are sarcastic by nature. I used to feel the same way until last week. This past week, I realized the dangers of misplaced sarcasm. I had a fight with a good friend that the importance of watching what I say really hit me. We resolved the conflict that same night, but I still can’t get over how horrible it felt to know that I had let something so destructive come out of my mouth. There wasn’t a reason behind what I said…I didn’t even mean it. What was worse was that I realized I had never let this friend know how much he means to me until after I had put my foot in my mouth.

I’m cautious about letting people know just how much they mean to me. I think that in expressing love openly, l leave myself vulnerable to disappointment, rejection, and betrayal. I’m afraid of giving of myself and finding out the feeling isn’t mutual. I know that there are several people in my life that I love that probably have no idea, but there are plenty of people I love that have been the subject of a “well-placed” sarcastic comment. Sarcasm always has a bit of truth in it; sometimes I just use it as a way of letting someone know I care.

I used to think I was sarcastic by nature, but now I’m thinking I’m sarcastic out of fear. Sarcasm is funny, and if I’m not sarcastic, I feel like I lose some sort of edge on life. It’s leverage I can hold over other people because I am good at it, not every one is. This goes back to the lifeboat mentality that Don Miller talks about. This pretending thing gets out of hand and we don’t just hurt ourselves when we pretend, we hurt others because we end up dealing with each other superficially, never giving each other the chance to be known.

"When you talk, do not say harmful things, but say what people need --- words that will help others become stronger." -- Ephesians 4:29

Blah

2005-09-18T14:39:00.000-05:00

by Jason Stenhouse

I began writing these thoughts down about a week or two ago, but they have felt unfinished, irritating me like a splinter in the back of mind; just waiting for me to do something with them. So I hope to do that something today.

I think it all started on a Tuesday when lots of things started coming at me a little bit too fast. Hurricane Katrina hit my hometown, I got in a fender-bender, I was asked to step up in several different areas of my life to lead/serve that I’m not sure I’m ready for, and I had a conversation with a friend that made me rethink a lot of stuff. It was after all this, that I laid in bed for several hours just thinking about why I do the things that I do.

I realized something that day. I realized that I don’t have any pure motives. Everything that I do, I do with the intention of being noticed by others, to gain applause. I have been trying to perform for people; trying to get them to think better of me. It kind of made me depressed and frustrated, but frustration really doesn’t describe how I felt. It was more like the kind of feeling that makes you want to run away from everyone and everything you know, leaving it all behind.

You may have never thought this about me before but it’s true. You may have thought of me as some selfless person, but that’s mostly a façade. The real me is desperate for others to notice and praise me for what I do. I tell myself that I just want people to like me, but I know that the reason for all this is much deeper than that. The truth is that I want people to redeem me; I want them to give me value or worth. So my conversations and actions are filled with little things that I say and do to try and impress others.

Just the other day I was talking with a friend and he mentioned something that he enjoyed doing. I countered with the things that I like to do, making sure that he knew how I love to listen to music that most people haven’t heard of and how I can play multiple instruments and how I read lots of books. I wanted him to think more highly of me. This happens in every conversation that I have. All of my actions are the same way. I like to help out with stuff, I like to serve. But I also like to make sure that every-one who is there sees me serving. That everyone there would know what a great servant’s heart I have. This is wrong, it’s selfish.

And in the midst of all of this I just want to run away. I want to leave this all behind, leave everyone I know and start again; but I can’t. I can’t stop talking with people and I can’t stop serving. That would be foolish. Jesus Christ has called us to love and serve others through both word and deed, so I cannot cease to do these things. I must continue on even with these impure motives, trusting that God can and will still use me; that I will be cured of these things.

I still feel like these thoughts are incomplete but I don’t know what else to say. I’m still frustrated, I still want to run away, but I believe I have found hope. God said somewhere that if we should all walk in the light, in honesty, we would be cleansed from all sin. My hope is here with others, in community, being honest with one another and with God that we would be cleansed from this sin that so easily entangles us. So, I suppose if anyone else out there is feeling like this, come find me. Let’s walk together. Let’s walk in the light and let’s be healed.