excited to learn

This weekend there is an RVL conference at my home church. We will be spending a couple days just learning more about the Bible and the Jewish perspective that Jesus had while he taught and lived here on earth. I've been to a couple before and I continually am getting more and more information, but I find that the more I learn, the more I realize that I don't know. The more I see how small I am and how big God it.

Last night we had a meeting with Ray for the Israel Trip coming up in about 2 months. It was exciting, there were lots of people there and it was a good time of conversation and learning. Ray shared a story of an encounter that he had with an Muslim guy while in his small vineyard. The man squished a grape and pointed out the two seeds inside the grape. With great challenge with the language barrier, the man finally communicated:

"I count seeds in grape, but only Allah (God) counts grapes in seeds." 

I can count the people at the conference, I can count the people in the youth group, the kids that come out, the lives that are changed, the perceived success, my grades in school, the papers to complete,  but I can only can count that. God counts more than that, his harvest spans what I cannot conceive. It is greatly humbling to see think that God knows the fruit of the seeds, He already knows what is going to come.

Every fruit bears seeds, I pray that I may bear plenty of fruit, plenty of seed that God can use.

It is a roller coaster.

I am hanging on with all I got,
the thread of sanity is still intact, barely.
grasped by my hand so firmly
connected to the one true hope.
Jesus, I am hanging onto you
Trusting that you will pull me through
give me the words to say and the love to show
because you're the only thing I'm sure of right now.

Words that flow from my thoughts, the last couple of days have been quite an interesting bunch. I feel that quite a few people I know have been going through a little of the unexpected lately.

Sunday morning at church didn't go quite as expected, and although I am fine, I still worried a lot through it all.
Then later I found out that, that afternoon, a good friend of mine fell  by a waterfall while hiking and by the grace of God, didn't break anything. Caused a lot people to worry and has quite a bit of pain to deal with, but he is alright.
Today I found out that the youth group I am working with will be taking a different route. A sudden death that we must work through as a group. I've never lead a group during a time like this, I know that I am working with great people, but it still has me wondering.

I'm hanging on. It feels a little like a roller coaster, filled with challenges and miracle, but my God is bigger. It's one of the most profound things that I know. God is bigger.

.....invisible....

I have to admit, I like sitting behind my compute. It puts me in control, I see what I want to see, I talk when I want to talk, I learn what I want to learn and I do what I want to do. It is pretty good.
Sometimes I can choose to see beautiful things, and choose to see things that make my heart ache for the hurting in the world. Sometimes I talk to people and have really good and fruitful conversations. Sometimes I learn very interesting things and can stay connected with the world outside the bubble in which I find myself most often. I can learn things and hear things that are beyond what I would learn else where. And sometimes, I can accomplish a lot while behind my computer, usually after I close facebook and stuff...
Yet there is a trend that I notice in myself, that when I sit myself down, time flies by and my heart grows cold. There is a sense of safety from behind the computer, it is safe and there is no one to pull at my heart and so I become more apathetic by the hour, soon I am tired and head off to bed accomplishing little in the way of any real connection with people.
It is powerful I think, the computer, the internet. It lets us do so much, so much freedom and time to do everything, but I think that there is a point that it becomes a hindrance, I will never like that picture on facebook as much as I would like to see that face or scene in person.
Maybe I ought to log off.

What is it worth?

Last night I hung out all night with the junior high youth at the all nighter we had. I enjoyed it. They have endless amounts of energy and honestly keep going right up until about 6am when most are so tired they just want to sit or sleep, but somehow some of them are still going.
There were a group of the senior high students out helping us out as well, and by about 4am they were a tired bunch as well. A couple of them started using the phrase that pulling an all night is simply 'self inflicted torture'. Another one of the leaders changed the perspective on it. Rather than self inflicted torture, it is an opportunity to build relationships with the junior highs doing something that they think is an amazing privilege to do. I think that is why we do it, why we push ourselves so far, because if we can connect with those who are important to us, it has made all the difference. There is something more that can be communicated when we offer all that we have and who we are.

It reminds me of a story that I heard before. Two men were out one day and they came across a man afflicted with demons. It was pretty clear what he was struggling with and so they pray with him. But despite the prayer for the man to be freed of demons in Jesus name, the man was not free of the demons. While they were walking away the one man asked the other why they were unable to free the man. Without thinking the man replied,  "I am not willing to die for that man."

What is it worth? What are the people that we encounter worth? Our they worth our perceived amount of dignity? Our time? Our energy? Our night of sleep in our own beds? Our social life?

I think at the core it comes down to a worship issue. What are we going to put at the center of our life as worth the most of who we are? If God is at the center then we will spend our time and our energy doing the things that God would have us do, but if our dignity is at the center then our time and energy is spent doing things that would bolster our dignity.

Maybe an all nighter can be viewed as an act of 'self-inflicted torture', but if it will let me show God's love to you, that is what I'll do.

This Weather!

I don't think that the weather can decide what it wants to do. Just Wednesday it was beautiful out, I might have even broken out the sandals for the day.  Today when I woke up, I could see a little of the blue sky that was there for the moment, and the thought occurred to me that it must be another warm and beautiful day. But when I actually got up, I was a little surprised that there was a blanket of snow covering everything. 

Maybe winter still has a chance..... Maybe it is just the weather being very confused.

One step at a time

I haven't been posting for a while, and I had an idea and thought it would good if I posted it.

For a while I have been wondering where God is leading me. Sometimes I wish that I could see ahead, and see what God has laid out for me and what the plan is. Sometimes I wish that there was a clear goal that I could aim for and when I reached I would be able to know that I completed this race.

But then I think a little more and am starting to realize that maybe if I saw the end goal, maybe I would not be able to accept myself in that role, or maybe I would think that that particular thing is too big for me and dig in my heels and stay where I am at.
Maybe I would be scared, I would consider that place uncomfortable and too difficult.
Or maybe this race wasn't created to have a finish line.

 I remember biking home from school at a kid. It was quite a long bike ride, but the freedom was worth it. When it was hot or especially windy I would focus on the barn in the distance that would stand out clearly. It was right after a curve in the road, so for a long while it seemed to sit in the middle of the road. I knew that when I got to that place I was almost home. So I would hurry to get there.  At that point I could relax, slow down a little and enjoy the last couple kilometers around the block.

Maybe this race wasn't created with a finish line. We don't know where it is, we are called to keep on running, and run with all that we've got. The is no point that gives us permission to slow down, relax and enjoy the last couple of kilometers around the block. We can enjoy the moment along the road, take time to take it all in and finish this race with so much excitement that we would keep on running if it wasn't over yet.
Maybe it is our tendency to hold on to what we have, save our energy when, God does not look at who crosses into heaven with the most things, but he who crosses into heaven jumping up and down, dancing around, because they know there is a great big crowd coming after them.

I think that it is better that I don't know yet. I know what I am called to right now. I am a student, I am a called to learn,  and in every capacity that I have the privileged to do I will do it to my best to glorify God.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Hebrew 12:1-2