Poems

Hello blog world!  I apologize for not putting up pictures from Hume yet but they are coming soon and so is a post to tell a little bit about how amazing it was.  Until then I want to get this posted...

"As I look into the mirror man, looking back at me all I see is a mere man.
The world's perspective
A view that's often skewed to leave out Christ the resurrected
But by my good looks, my personality, my confidence I'm accepted?
Which by my rationality means that those that lack these things are rejected
Two perspectives
On the left hand, the weak hand, the world’s hand says this
The sun doesn't shine off of me and heighten my prestige
I shine off of the stars and illuminate the galaxies
Conceit and vain find their residence in my veins
As I forklift spiritual gifts from a blood stained crucifix
Only to use it for my own satisfaction
Selfish action tightens my hand down into a fist
Culture calls for this
But on the right hand, the strong hand, God's hand
Holds tears and sweat because I've never agreed with this hopelessness

So now as I look into the mirror man, looking back at me I see nothing
more than a mere man"

Let it shine, Let it shine, Let it shine

So much power wrapped in three little words and yet, we sing them like a nursery rhyme

As if all this time Lucifer’s power was just a myth

Power that’s Identical to the effort put forth to blow out birthday candles with

So little, so weak, so irrelevant

In our circles today, the great lengths of his destructive ways are as unclear as a mumble

We deny his impact and sit back while families crumble

Sons and Daughters sink deeper into depression Harboring bitterness from unanswered questions

While all the while we with truth engage in debate over spiritual don’ts and do’s

Paralleling the sweet love of Jesus to an insignificant fruit

Don’t get me wrong, I love bananas, I know that mangos are sweet

But the image of nails through hands and feet just doesn’t seem to compete

A mother, overwhelmed with defeat, uncontrollably weeps

At the foot of the cross as blood seeps from her son’s feet   

What do you tell her when she asks “what’s to come”

In that moment it seems absurd to offer a cliché prayer or a melodious love song

Then why today is our faith a reflection

Of a catchy tune you would hear in June when VBS is in session

There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide but it’s so much deeper and wider than we can fathom

On Sundays we close eyes, hands raise give him praise, but on Monday…

We refuse that we have him

A time has come to replace faction with a greater understanding that the call of Christ…

Is a call to Action

To be the movers and shakers of this Generation Who are generally based in myspace Education

Who have taken Jesus’s words of “Follow me” and “Go”

And replaced them with a tolerable agree….. and NO

To understand that it’s not logical

In fact, it’s impossible

To give an account for the hope that is in us with an “eat” “drink” and “be marry” Gospel

It’s time to stop splashing in the shallow end of the fountain

And plant a real seed that will grow real faith to move mountains

Understanding that with Christ you can whisper truth in a noisy room and he’ll still changes lives

A whisper that is much less than the breath you use to sing

Let it shine, Let it Shine, Let it shine

Thanks to Kevin for these :)

HUME LAKE HOMIES

That's right. We leave for Hume in 10 hours and I could not be more thrilled!  I can't wait to be away for a week and take quality quiet time in the presence of God, watch high school students be shaken up by how God moves, watch my best friend help shepherd some sheep, grow closer to old friends and build bonds with new friends, watch God pull the sun up over the ridiculously beautiful mountains and lake to start each day with peace and tranquility but then sustain that sun in the heavens while we get dirty for rec and finally exchanging it with the glowing moon to preside over us as we sleep at night.  Uhm yup, I'm definitely ready for camp!

"I just want to brag about the fact that I got raptured"

Wow.  

Ron's message tonight was amazing.  It was the kind of message that makes you want to leave the church doors and go out to really live for Christ, even if that means dying for him because it was the kind of message that makes you not afraid to die.  As a Christian, I know where I am going when I die...how amazing is that?  I get to meet the creator of the universe when I leave this life.  It makes me want to devote every second of my time here to absolutely great, God glorifying things so that when I do meet this majestic God of mine He will be able to look at me and be proud.  He will call me his good and faithful servant and this love that I am striving to comprehend will become transparent and tangible for me.  I can't wait for that day, my prayers tonight will be consumed with requests for the rapture to happen asap.  Until it does however, I am anxious for Hume and really feeling my heart prepare for Africa.  If I haven't said it enough, I can't wait to go and be the hands and feet.  I'm so blessed to have the opportunity to go serve others in need and I praise God for it.

I am going to miss Ron SOOOO much.  I love his messages.  Not only do they add gasoline to my flames, they make me want to spread those flames like wild fire.  There are a few people I have in mind when I think about "spreading the flame" and they are in my prayers constantly but above and beyond that I start thinking about missions.  1040 window missions.  People who have never heard the name of Christ missions.  For now they are still just thoughts but God is recurrently putting them in my head and my heart.

Well, time for bed because tomorrow is t-shirt making, gym, hw, melting pot and Jacquee and Amanda time!  Yay :)

Insightful.

Some things I learned today that I feel are necessary to share with the blogging world:

1. Apparently blogging is for regular everyday updates on peoples lives (I am still not 100% convinced people care about my day to day whereabouts).

2. According to Jon Hubs, if I rub Orajel or anything similar on my eye twitch it will go away.  He says he tried it on his arm and the next day the twitch was gone, however I don't believe him...any second opinions?  What in the world do you do for a chronic eye twitch?!  And Jon, are you not going to Hume?  Don't let its pilgrim history scare you off, I'm told it's quite worth it.

3. Yay for Katie getting a blog! And yay for Wednesdays at the Cafe :)

4. Steve left his Guitar Hero with me to babysit while he is at camp and I am infatuated...The only problem is my stupid pinky finger can't reach the orange!  Dang the orange button and dang Through the Fire and Flames!

5. Note to self, stop using potato chip soap. -thanks Trav

6. Note to Travis, stop not showering- your smell can't get much worse.  Sometimes I still think that you are in Arizona because I can smell your stench from TJ....and partly because of Chris' creepy, yet slightly amazing, life size cardboard poster of you.

7. Lunch with Lauren on Friday. Could not be more excited! :)

Lastly,

everyone pray for Shannon.  She is in a state of mental breakdown because of nursing school and she could sure use the prayer even though she is going to do amazing.

It was brought to my attention today that the only thing I know how to do on this blog is postings and picture additions...lame!  If anyone has any tips as to how I make this thing interesting (Aka, put music on it, add links to other sites in the margins, etc.) please inform me!  Apparently I am one step above blog illiteracy and that just won't fly!

P.S. I am ECSTATIC about the amazing family that God has blessed Merge with and I can't wait for HUME!!!!!

In Sync.

Everyone’s world views are a product of their acquired knowledge and life experiences.  This is something I have been thinking a lot about lately.  No two people see the same thing the same way because they are influenced by a multitude of different perceptions.  When I see a homeless man, I see Jesus.  I see someone who needs a helping hand, who might not have had the opportunities that I had growing but or who is living out the consequences for some poor choices early on in life.  I see a soul that is at wits ends and needs a savior.  A friend of mine however, sees a product of their own demise.  He sees someone who scams the system, someone who is dirty, a beggar, too lazy to get up and work for himself.  He thinks they deserve nothing because they don't put in the effort to get anything.  I'm not saying that either viewpoint is right, but I am bringing to light the fact that two people can look at one situation and draw completely different conclusions.  This happens all the time when two people look at the exact same bible verse and draw completely different conclusions from it.  Both conclusions could be completely sound including further scriptural support, but which is right?  

How I view Christianity is completely different than how my friends Josh and Aaron view it.  Josh believes in Christianity but he has a world’s view of the church.  This causes him to have trouble looking deeper into Christianity, past the stereotypes that come along with it (that are sometimes very accurate about the people in the church today).  Aaron, a history major and extremely educated friend of mine from work, refuses to believe that there is only one right religion because there is too much evidence to support numerous different religions, especially ones that contradict each other when evidence seems to prove both true.  I know their outlooks are deeper than this summary and I don't want to discredit that but these are the aspects of their belief that has stuck out to me.  These kids have got me thinking and scrutinizing and investigating what’s real.  Hebrews 11:6 encourages us to “diligently seek” God (KJV).  The Beth Moore bible study that I’m going through right now uses Strong’s Greek translation of the word “seek” as a verb that means “to search for, investigate, seek out, beg, crave, demand back, require, scrutinize”.  I thank God for these people in my life, regardless of the questioning of my faith that happens in response to having long conversations with them.  In fact, not “regardless”, but “because of” would be better wording.  These kids help me to dig out answers for my faith and better comprehend how to share what I believe and why I believe it.  God doesn’t want us to walk blindly when we follow him, but he also wants us to have faith without evidence.  What a tricky concept.  Be able to carefully explain what you believe without having all of the evidence for it.  I guess that’s the beauty of faith.  To answer my previously proposed question, how do we know which interpretation is right?  I’d have to say that man’s interpretation is nothing in comparison to God’s intentions.  I think exegesis is essential to our faith but I also think that God has the final say in everything he wrote anyway and we can't forget that.  People get very strong headed in what they believe because they think that their ability to decipher God's word is from the Holy Spirit and therefore set in stone.  I only have a complaint about the latter.  There are traditional doctrines that God is very clear about, but there are also some that still infuse questions.  If we don't ask those questions honestly and clearly and truly listen to what God has to say about them, how will we know Him better?  He doesn't want us to listen to a pastor or an author or an elder or any human being on their own, He wants us to test what these people have to say with His word (1 John 4:1-3).

At the end of the day, I only care about being in sync with how my God views life.  I know that my God is there to listen to my prayers and lay with me as I fall asleep.  His comfort and warmth thaws the busy chaos from the day as it melts off of me and sinks into my pillow.  I thank him for his word that directs me, enlightens me, inspires me, draws me closer to him.  For people like Lee Strobel and all of the scholars he interviews in “The Case for Christ” for devoting their lives to apologetics so that everyone else can benefit from their findings.  I thank him for the amazing people in my life and the small day to day blessings that I never want to take for granted.  Because I know that at the end of the day, no matter what other people might think based on their own world views and preconceived notions about Christianity, those view points don’t change who God is.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), AMEN.

Non-practicing Christians?

You know how people say they are Jewish but "not practicing”…like you don’t partake in the religious ceremonies (besides one here and there like Yom Kippur or Hanukah)  but you still claim to follow that religion.  To further illustrate my point, I found this on an "ask moses" website...

Rachel: My mum is jewish, but not practicing. I am told this means I am jewish. Is that correct?

Mrs. Shaffer: if her mother is Jewish, then she is Jewish, and you are Jewish :)

Mrs. Shaffer: practicing or not...Jewishness is yours :)

Rachel: Even if they know less about judaism than the next guy on the street?

Mrs. Shaffer: yup

...All I can say to that is, wow.  I know we are talking about Judaism and it's a whole new ball game because of the whole lineage thing but that just seems odd to me as a Christian.  But it presents the question, can you be a non-practicing Christian?  I feel like I see more and more Christians today who are on the fence or completely NOT practicing but would still whole heartedly consider themselves “Christians”.  If you are half following the world and half following Christ, how can you be considered a Christian?  Can you be partly of Christ, and part of this world?  And, is it possible to be a non-practicing follower of Christ?  I would argue that this is impossible...that you absolutely can not be a Christian without actually following Christ.  You are either wholly a Christian or you're not.  Jesus makes this very clear throughout scriptures.  (Galations 1:10, Romans 12:2 and Revelations 3:14-17 are merely a few examples of this)  The very heart of Christianity is deeply rooted in acting as a response to faith.  Faith without deeds is dead (James 2:26). Without stepping up, taking action and living out your faith, what else is there to Christianity? Without the practicing part of “Christianity”, you can’t be a Christian.

So, I found this on Yahoo Answers:

What exactly is a non-practicing christian?

SDB Deacon: I've noticed that some on here say that they are christians, but that they aren't practicing christians. What exactly are these people?

Rebelarm: These people have the good strong christian values but don't go to church on a weekly basis. I am a non practicing christian only because I can't find as good a church that I belonged to before I joined the army.

Since when did acting or practicing your faith get belittled to the sole act of going to church on Sunday?  Good moral values, church on Sunday...Yup, put a check mark next to Christian on my list of personality traits!  I'm sorry but that's just crap.  That completely demeans Christ and everything Christianity stands for.  Yes, the church is essential to our faith.  The church is the body of Christ but if that church (I'm talking about the people in the church here) does nothing more than hear a message on Sunday, if that church doesn't take their faith outside the church doors, if that church doesn't reach out to those in need, if that church doesn't consider God in their daily lives outside the four walls of the church then Christianity is stupid.  I know these are just some random sample opinions from people online but I don't think they are too far fetched from what a great deal of people believe about Christianity today.

This is far from being a new revelation for most Christians, it's been preached countless times before but I would argue that it begs repeating because obviously it hasn't hit home with a lot of people.  It took me four years for any of this to click with me.  To realize that being a Christian meant I actually had to BE a Christian and that required action beyond getting baptized and taking communion on Sundays (even when I had been drinking on Saturdays).  I really don’t understand what took me so long or why I didn’t start acting on my faith sooner and it makes me want to kick myself but I do know that since the lights went on for me, they are never going off.  

Caution! Extreme understatement: Following Christ will be hard.  I know will feel disconnected at times from those who have had different revelations from God (or none at all) and in my experience, those people are usually the ones closest to me.  I will feel confused, asking God why he is asking me to do crazy, outrageous things; things that this world deems as “stupid, foolish, naïve”; things that I don’t understand.  He will ask me to trust him through those crazy requests, even when I feel like they are so far off base from where my life should be going (cause I know better than God does, right?).  Despite all of these reasons and a million others as to why it will be hard following God at times instead of giving in to temptation, the “easy way out” and conforming to the patterns of this world, I will continue to seek the Lord.  I know that if I seek him, he will draw near to me (James 4:8).  I know that if I believe in him, he will reward me (Hebrews 6:11).  And I know that because of the trials I face on this Earth, this life will all be made worth it by my Father when I get to heaven (Luke 6:20-26).