Job and Jen

I've recently been reading the book of Job because Job intrigues me. What intrigues me the most about Job at the beginning of the book is that he's so well rooted in his relationship with God that even though Satan attacked everything he owned and eventually Job himself, he was still going to praise God. The last verse in chapter one says that "In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing." I've been thinking to myself, "would I be like Job if everything I had was taken away from me? Would it be written down that I did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing?" I want to be this way in my life and I was praying for God to show me how to live my life in a continuous state of worship and then tonight happened.

Tonight we had our monthly ministry team meeting. It's where all of the groups from the Department of Ministry teams get together and worship, check on our progress reports, and also hear from various speakers. Our speakers tonight were Linda and Jen Barrick. I don't know if you know their story, but it deeply impacted me. The Barrick Family was involved in a car crash that should have killed them, but He has chosen to give them all life and they're using it to proclaim of the miracle of what happened and continues to happen in their lives. While I was listening to them talk about the many miracles that took place, I noticed that Jen's life showed this continuous state of worship that I have been wanting and through the testimony of her life God showed me a little bit of what it takes to achieve this. It's about forsaking the confidence I have in myself and getting on my knees daily to ask Him to show me what He wants me to see. While I'm on my knees, it's easier to take after the example that Christ set and wash the feet of those around me. The time I start to see life from the perspective of a servant is the time I will see life more the way it was intended for me to.

So Job and Jen have sparked this desire to change the way I'm living. Both were able to praise the Lord through all the junk that happened to them because they chose to surrender themselves before God before adversity hit. Am I willing to daily hit my knees and allow God to be my eyes for the day? Are you? May we grab hold of His vision for our lives and abandon those things that obstruct our sight of this.

Lord, here I am. I'm on my knees.
Change the way I'm living, please.
Here's my life. It's in Your hands.
My hopes. My dreams. My selfish plans.

Shake me. Break me. Take my shame.
Use it all to lift Your Name.
Set my eyes to gaze on You.
May you be pleased in all I do.

C'mon Seattle!

So I've decided that the Seahawks have stopped trying to win. I think they might like being terrible so that there's no expectation for them to perform.

At least my Colorado Av's are doing alright....

I don't know why I posted this.

Oh, Liberty...

My current setting: Jazzman's Cafe. I'm watching the line of caffeine addicted students file up to the register to order a fix of their favorite beverages. Some look happy (like class just got cancelled or something) and others look dead tired (like me, because I just got rocked by a bio exam and am ready to go to bed.) But something I've realized is that I love to observe what's going on around me up here at the Computer Lab/Jazzman's Cafe and through my "observations" I've noticed a few things that happen each time I come up here...

1.) People are constantly looking around to see if there's someone they know in the area. I can walk into a room and 40 heads immediately pop up from their computers to see if it's one of their friends. (And I'm pretty sure I've already looked up 25 times in the time it took me to write that.)

2.) People who sit on the sofa's rarely ever seem like they're doing work. They may have a book propped open, or a notebook out, but they're almost always just talking with each other... Although, I have seen a couple of guys take up an entire sofa and when they see a cute girl walking by they subtly scoot over. Smooth. Real smooth.

3.) There are 3 noticeable groups of people who use the computers up here. There's one group that isn't really using the computers, but they're just taking up 3 entire tables to have myspace open and be loud, there's the gamer kids who sit at the laptop stations with their headphones on playing World of Warcraft, and there's the kids who are frantic to find a computer so that they can print off an assignment that they had forgotten back at the dorm. (I know there are more groups, but I can always count on at least these 3 whenever I come into the CLAB.)

4.) There's always that guy who's flirting with girls way too loud. Don't be that guy. No one likes you.

5.) Accountability groups. There's ALWAYS accountability groups going on at Jazzman's. "Have you had your quiet time today? Yes? Good! Well lets get get some mocha and talk about boys for the next half hour."

Sidenote: Why do we call daily time with God "quiet time"? I mean, I'm sure that most of the time we're quiet while we reflect on the things we've learned, but what about private worship in which we sing and read scripture aloud?... would that be considered "quiet time"?... what if I listen to Carson Wagner's "Rhapsody in Blue" while I read the Bible? Would that then disqualify my Bible reading for the day, forcing me to read Scripture in silence?

... anyway, I could go on... but I'll spare you. I'm going to go see if there's anyone in this place that I know. K, bye.

Axe, Freshman, and Girls

Oh yes, the first day back to school. It has a distinct smell that is hard to shake even after it's over. In a sense that smell is literal (the freshman who bathe in it before going to class for the first time with "college girls"), but in a different sense it's almost like a tangible excitement that just permeates the campus. Whether it's upperclassman finding their old friends in the hallways or the freshman looking for t a friend in the hallways, it's just an exciting time to be here.

I'm currently sitting in the laptop section of the computer lab trying to figure out where my classes are. As of now I only have two classes on Monday, a first since I've been at school. Usually by this time I would have already had a class or two, eaten almost two meals and had at least one cup of Jazzman's coffee. I almost don't even know what to do with myself since I've got an hour in between convo and my next class. I guess I could go meet some of those bright eyed freshmen who are wandering around the halls trying to figure out where DeMoss 1113 is.

Or I could just sit here...

This year holds a lot of interesting things for me. For one, I'll be turning 21 in less than a month. Two, I'm trying out a fantasy football league thing for the first time ever. Three, I'm living in a hotel, the one on Odd Fellows Road. I like it so far, and hopefully it stays that way. It's weird 'cause there are girls on the second and third floors. I guess that's not so weird, but I'm so accustomed to Liberty's male dorm thing that I kind of freak out a little when a girl walks down the hall to get to the staircase. I feel like I'm in third grade a lot when there are girls around the dorm and in my mind I'm saying "No! Forbidden!" Maybe I'll get over my fear of girls this year too... or maybe I'll be more frightened. After reading Twilight, I'm not any less scared.

Well, I'm about to go and get some coffee and wake up. Here's to another school year at LU...

Hosea and Me

I've been reading in Hosea lately and I cannot get over the first 3 chapters. Hosea is basically the man, and through his story I'm learning more and more about how I fall short of where I need to be.

Hosea is faced with an intense command from God. Chapter 1, verse 2 says this: "When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, 'Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord." I don't know what I'd do in this situation. Take for myself an adulterous wife? Really? But since Hosea is the man, he obeys God and marries this girl named Gomer. I don't know what her parents were thinking when they named her this... but whatever.

Chapter 2 talks about Israel and how adulterous it has been to God. There is some pretty harsh language towards Israel throughout this entire chapter and it seems pretty grim for the Israelites at this point. But this is where the story gets interesting: the start of chapter 3.

The Lord then says to Hosea "Go show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adultress. Lover her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes." Even through Israel's total deprivation in sin and turning to anything but God, He still loves them. He tells Hosea to do the same for his wife. Hosea searches out his wife and finds her immersed in sin to the point of being put on auction for other men. He looks at her with love and buys her back for 15 shekels of silver and asks her to come live with him again for "many days". Hosea takes his wife back even after she has openly and freely given herself away to other men. What a picture of redemption this gives us!

It says in Exodus 21:32 that the price for a slave is 30 shekels, so in essence, Hosea's wife here is being sold for half the price of a slave. She is cheapened so much that she is being sold for next to nothing practically. But Hosea still sees worth in her. To me, this gives me great hope because I am worth less than Hosea's wife. I have cheapened myself so much by sin that I am worth next to nothing, but Jesus Christ loved His bride enough to come and not only buy us for half to the price of a slave, but He came down and saw us in our nakedness and shame and adultery and decided to give His LIFE for us. I'm chosen to be His, and I can think of no one greater to serve than Someone like that.

May we realize this and grab hold of Christ's extended arm that's buying us back from adulterous slavery. And may we live with Him for "many days" learning through the words that He's spoken through the Bible.

I'm ready to start preparing the bride for the Bridegroom's return.

A Non-Seriously Serious Post

List of Awesome things:
- Cheesy scary movies
- Sleeping in a bed
- Growing Pains (the TV show, not the pains you get from growing.)
- Chocolate milk
- New car tires
- You
- Kyle Cumming's CD "The Interstate"
- Spending all summer traveling with cool guys and playing music

List of Not-Awesome things:
- Hip-hop music so loud it hurts my body
- 98 degree weather (however, 98 Degrees the band might be a different story...)
- People who scream a lot
- Twilight (sorry. It was so hard to finish reading for me.)
- Forgetting what you were about t........

ANYWAY, I'm in Wilson, North Carolina right now just hanging out for the next couple of days before Ministry Team training camp starts. I'm looking forward to getting back to a routine.

Kthxbye.

Genuine

Culture force feeds us a false idea of satisfaction. We are told by the shows that we watch and the music that we listen to that sex and wealth can gratify our needs, but it only seems to fuel itself and perpetuate a stronger desire for those things. Once the smell of those things reaches our nostrils the idols of our stomach cry out to be fed. The funny thing is that we (Christians) think we can subside the stomach pain by teasing it with a little bit of what it’s calling out for. “Maybe if I go that one website just this once my desire for lust will dissipate.” What a backwards way of thinking.

Maybe we should fill our sense of smell with the sweet aroma of the Word of God. Maybe if we did this our stomachs desire would change from the filth and garbage that we wave in front of our faces daily and start to crave that which it was intended for. And maybe, just maybe, if we were to feed on Scripture the church would look drastically different; the hands and feet of Christ might finally have the strength to move forward and make a difference.

May you begin to fill yourself with the beauty of God’s Word. May we, the church, the body of Christ, hold up what we are taught and hold it up to the Light and see if it is genuine or counterfeit.