a modern manger

this is where i think jesus would be born today

a nice trip

i haven't blogged in almost a week so i just compensated with two other blogs.

this past weekend was an amazing time. saturday was one of the highlights for me. i got to visit a really great family from camp who opened up there house for the day to me. i went snowmobiling for the first time, which was pretty wicked, and i saw some things that really made me think.

i have an obsession with dirty things - that sounds really bad, so let me explain. i love things that are torn down, wrecked, messy (if you've seen my car you know what i mean), broken (like me), and all that jive.

while we were snowmobiling we stopped at an old barn and abandoned house which really stood out to me.

like hamilton


screaming out of that place was a voice as clear as day "this is my house".

when you see a beat up house, an old respectable, but trashy place, you cannot help but wonder what it looked like - before the mold, lime, water damage, snow damage, rust, old furniture, dust, and gross stuff.

i've learned from my church that just as much as god's making all things new in heaven, he wants us to make things new on earth. in that place i had a vision of what that old house should look like.

it needed care, cleaning, love, someone to live there, someone to work on it and take all the garbage out.

i read haggai a few weeks ago while my church was on retreat and i was home, i remember reading "why do you people live in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins", those words still resound, as the curtain tore and god left the temple and entered the world to live in us.

our hearts, our communities, our cities, all lie in ruin like that house, needing cleaning, care, and someone to make a difference.

seeing that house made me realize what i should be doing, instead of sitting at this computer on facebook while blogging.

what i know

i struggle when i hear people trying to prove god's existence.
just because those essays, numbers, facts only confuse, and anger people.

the choice i like is the choice to share what you know. i never found god from someone saying "god's there...he made everything, he loves you", i found god from someone saying "yeah, when i met him everything was better". if someone gave me a tract, quoted scripture to me, or said "BELIEVE" i would've found them hostile when i was doubting.

the thing that changed me was someone telling me about a love they can't explain
a comforter they can't see
a father that listens till he's heard
miracles that don't make sense
and a peace that brings healing

nothing can ever say experience is false. the words "jesus was there for me" can never be taken away from someone

promise

hope is key not only to survive life, but to making it better.

for me, hope is spring, the promise of warm weather, it's there i see the hope of jesus coming back.

jesus is hope. he freed us by dying, coming back to life and leaving us his spirit to say "i'm coming back, soon". in fact the last words of jesus in the bible are "i am coming soon".

no words have as much hope as those. i am coming

it's that hope that drives change.

any movement, change, revolution, love, must have that hope behind it.
if martin luther king hadn't had hope that his race might be set free, if he hadn't had a vision of a free nation, he wouldn't have done anything

he had that vision that his people might be set free.


all of jesus' movements on earth were made to bring hope in to a desolate world ruled by sin and destruction

God sending his son is his way of saying "here's the hope to start you off".

any action we make on this earth must have that same hope behind it.
if i don't have hope that there's something more, well, i'd die.

in the countryside

last night my bible was open to john 3 and there i found something i needed to hear

jesus and his disciples left jerusalem and went in to the countryside where he started baptizing people in water

that verse caught me, i read before it, but didn't get it, i read after it, and this was what i found:

john was baptizing people in a nearby river when his disciples came to him and said "the one you call messiah is baptizing people on the other side of the river, more people are going to him than to us"
and john replied to them saying "my job is only to point them towards the one called messiah, he is the one who should baptize them, he must grow more and more, and i must grow less and less"

that's a paraphrase, but you get it. jesus was doing the baptizing, and john was doing the pointing, if someone came to him, he would baptize them, always doing it in God's name. but rather than running to jesus saying "here let me help you with that!" he said "i'll wait here, and direct people to God, God knows how to baptize people himself"

as a human i naturally want to be involved, be on the frontline, saving people, but that's not my job, my job is to point people to God, prepare the way for God, not save their souls myself, i don't have that power. i've found sometimes i try to take that power, but my only power is to say "you are forgiven because jesus loves you, and has saved you." and to say "jesus has rescued me countless times from death, from sin, from myself, and he wants to do the same for you"

as i direct people to God, i must become less and less, and let jesus be more and more.

my problem is, i always want to be more. but that's not my place.

i dunno

i'm kind of all over the place right now.

i'm someone who would say i love jesus if anyone ever asked. but a lot of the time i'm asking for things.
"help me develop a better relationship with this person"
"let me be able to do this"
"this is what i need"

when really, in all honesty, those are probably the things i need the least.

if i'm to the point that i want to be friends with someone, or want to be able to do something, or feel like i need something, then whatever it is i'm asking for, has power over me, instead of God having power over me.

if i say "i need a pony" and obsess over it to the point i'm asking God for that pony, then the pony has become a point of obsession, and it's something i need to let go of before i get that pony. i'm putting so much time and effort in to that pony that i'm giving more time and effort, and power to the pony in my life, than God.

i think a more substantial prayer would be "God, give me what i need, and fill my soul with an abundance of life"

one of the desert fathers said "when i pray, i keep it simple, a few words, it's more honest that way, my most common prayer is 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me' and if things get really difficult, i resort to 'help me' that is how i pray"

i'm really bad at that, i like to talk a lot... so it goes more around the lines of "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me... i'm a wreck, help me to do this...help me to be more like this... this is what i'm doing wrong... i need this... and this... and this... and this... and this person's awesome... i want to be better friends with them... helpme to love more... be more like you... i'm really bad at this... this is something i do well at... give me the opportunity to do this... to use this strength... " and by the time i'm done with praying... i've said about 20 gazillion words... so much for simple.

but hey, God can use anything.

beauty

i'm making all things new

the ominous words of God ring out in the book of revelations.
i had to write it like that.

you see:
jesus comes to restore, save, and bring life. throughout the whole bible God is an artist, a creator, someone who brings something new, something beautiful in to being. the first way we see God is as a creator, a sculptor, making earth, and not stopping until it's all good, it's all perfect, until it's all beautiful.

that's the first characteristic we learn about God.

then we screw things up, and it's God to the rescue to restore what was broken.

i don't know much about art, but i do know this: it's about beauty, aesthetics, stuff God understands better than me.

as a follower of jesus, i'm supposed to reflect those characteristics of God, one of which is beauty. we sing songs of God's beauty, we talk about it and all that jive, but we don't get that it's all around us.

God made a perfect world, it was his intent to have everything in harmony, when adam ate that fruit, he screwed everything up, and the world was no longer perfect. but the beauty wasn't gone. it's still there, it's still in everything, just...it's harder to find, and our job is to find that beauty, to work for that restoration, to make things new again.

it's like restoring an old painting.
it's faded, chipped, a bit damaged, there's an old frame, but the painting is still there, it's still got the beauty in it, just it needs work, it needs some new paint, some touch up work, some varnish for the frame, maybe some faux wood, it probably needs to be dusted...


we all have some artistic gift, some way to bring about further beauty in this world.

some people are gifted musicians, others are painters, some are sculptors, others are photographers. me, i'm a writer, a speaker, i try poetry sometimes, i do whatever i can. in all honesty, i'm not an 'artistic' person at all.

my friend randy is a gifted artist, bothe with music, verse, and his artwork. it all harmonizes, it's incredible.

another friend of mine: kie, he's a gifted musician, but he's also amazing at helping others unlock their musical abilities, furthering beauty in the world.

my aunt meanwhile, can take any old antique and restore it to it's old glory.



all these things are participating in God's creation and recreation.

i'm making all things new is a call for us to take what we're given, and use it to participate in the creation of a new earth.