There is no formula for God

I had the divine pleasure to sit and talk with friends for hours last night talking about life! It was incredible! It’s one reason why I love EMU so much! As we tried to figure out life and our callings and what we ought to do with our education, we kept coming back to this one frustrating truth: There is no formula for God. It’s annoying really. So many Christians live to figure out what God is all about and what His will is for them. They attempt to please Him and spread Jesus’ story to others. That’s all good and well, but it’s not anything simple. You can't learn all about it in class. You can't master a strategy. You can't buy the knowledge of who God is. You can't use a formula for God!

So if I go to church every Sunday morning and some extra church event during the week and read my Bible 15 minutes a day and pray before every meal and don’t sin too much then whenever I need something from God He’ll give it to me. If I need help choosing a career then He’ll tell me. If I need help with a relationship then He’ll help me. If I need to learn some lesson then He’ll teach me. If I need to conquer some fear then He'll strengthen me. If I've done X, Y and Z then when it comes time for God to be God, He will and my life will be perfect. Nope. Never going to happen.

I posed this question: Does God ever make promises He never intends to keep? "Promises" isn't the right word obviously, but I couldn't think of a better way to phrase it at that time. Here's a better way: Does God ever tell you something will happen and then make sure it doesn't happen just to remind you that He is in control? Just when you think you have it figured out, you've been feeling peace and contentment for years on the path you are on and you are so close to making a gigantic difference in the world for God, He pulls out the rug and says: "Stop! I'm in control. So don't think you know the direction I'm leading." Does God do that?

We can get so set on our patterns of life. We can have this one song that always fills our hearts with worship; we can have this one place that fills us with God's presence; we can have this one friend that always shows us Christ at work; and then just to tell us that we haven't figured Him out, God'll pull it all away and remove all its meaning.

It would be so nice if we could say, if you aren't content with life then God wants you some other place. It would be so nice if we could say, if you are at peace then you are exactly who God wants you to be. But then we'd have figured out God. So what if we have no idea where God wants us to go or what God wants us to do or who God wants us to be and we are just asked to walk along blindly? What if we cannot rely on peace for our decisions? What if we are asked to live in discontentment as God tests our faith? What if God never gives us the courage to do that one thing that we should do and expects us to do it anyway? What if God doesn't help us with a decision and expects us just to make it and see Him work through whatever we choose?

No one has figured God out and no one ever will! All we can do is be obedient when His will is clear and always live in faith that He indeed is God.

Free will is funny

Free will is indeed funny. It's really quite unusual and I never really realized that until tonight. I know it's something that I must have been told before or at least realized to some small degree, but tonight it sunk in. As some people say, what had been head knowledge became heart knowledge tonight. So I figured I'd write about it. Why not?

I have no doubt that free will exists. God gave us the ability to make choices in our own lives with lasting consequences--good or bad. Tonight during a discussion on Genesis we talked about Adam and Eve. They obviously made a choice that was outside the will of God. And God didn't stop them; he allowed it to continue and let them live with the result. He told them not to eat of the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They ate--free will.

What's funny about free will is the desired result. I consider free will a gift. Let's say it's a coconut. I have a dozen coconuts and don't really need all of them, so I mail a coconut to someone. They keep the coconut or they realize this is a really random gift that made them smile and would make others smile as well so they send it to someone else. The gift gets passed from person to person, but I don't want my 12th coconut back.

Free will is a gift God has given to us. He could force us to make choices that glorify Himself, but He chooses to give us freedom to make our own decisions. The funny part is that the thing He most desires is for us to give that gift right back to Him. We, as humans in God's image, have the ability to choose whatever we want. Ideally though, God would like us to forfeit that precious choice and do whatever he chooses--whatever glorifies Him. He'll make the choices for us and ask for our obedience and trust as we do as He wills not as we will. We give His gift right back to Him

Romans 8:28 comes to mind. It's a promise God gave us. My paraphrase: We know that God will work everything for good for those that love him and accept their calling. Basically, we can make choices for our own good and do what we can to improve our own lives. Or, we can choose God's purpose for our lives and live according to his choices and trust that he will carry out his promise to bring us good. Essentially, it's rejecting free will and living for God's will; it's being vulnerable and open and weak. That's what God wants us to do with our gift.


My prayer: Father, we come before you on our knees with our arms open. We ask for your will and the ability to live in it. So be it.

Joey

I spent my last 2 weeks at Penn York Camp with basically only one camper. Two weeks ago I also had responsibility over 3 more campers, but there were so experienced that I barely had to do anything. I could trust them--a huge blessing for any camp staff! So that allowed me to give adequate attention to this other camper, Joey. Then last week I was given responsibility for only Joey and no other campers.

Joel Rosario is one of a handful of campers that choose to come to Penn York Camp for multiple weeks during the summer. Usually campers that really love PYC can find two weeks that fit their age group and convince their parents to allow them to go twice. It's not that way for Joey. He never comes for a week in his age group. PYC doesn't hold camps for his age group. Last Sunday Joey turned 24. The closest fit week for him is teen week (last week) and the other week he loves is music camp (two weeks ago). For many years Joey has been coming to those camps when he is able. I remember 5 years ago, my last year at PYC as a camper, he was also a camper at teen camp.

See, Joey is severely mentally and physically handicapped. For those with patience he can walk around a bit on his uneven and very unsteady legs with the aid of a strong arm for his grasping left hand. But 95% of the time Joey will be seen cruising in his neon green Quickie II wheelchair. Since is right hand is shriveled and useless, the best Joey can do on his own in his chair is spin in circles. Yeah, that is slightly amusing, but he makes good use of it when able to face the direction he pleases, generally in the direction of the nearest music. Other times it's up to me to push him over hill and dale. I'm not really sure what that phrase implies, but for those of you that know PYC, the main building in on top a hill and everything else is down hill from there. So that makes coming back from everywhere a nice long uphill climb.

He requires extensive help to go to the bathroom and get changed in the morning. With bite size food he can eat fine on his own as long as someone watches to see that he chews and swallows often enough. Joey's main speaking is in echoes of whatever was just said to him. Since that proves useless in practical conversation, I had to make a lot of guesses at to what he needed. His most common useful phrase is "need to go to the bafroom." Unfortunately, that could also mean that he wanted to go to sleep. Occasionally he used "need to go to the bed," but more often it was pleads for bafroom and pointing to his bed or grabbing his pillow that conveyed the need for a nap. Words like "mommy" stressed the importance of his need whether I knew the need or not. Occasionally a head shake or nod when asked extremely simple questions would help.

I feel like I could write for hours about the uniqueness of Joey, but I'll only take the time to write more about his smiles and his laughter! He is so infectious! When he is not sleepy, he'll often be smiling. When music is also going he'll add a little bobbing forward and back. And his laughter always seems sporadic and leave me questioning what ever could be so hilarious. He'll giggle at the smallest things and anytime people take interest in his giggles it'll quickly be turned into the most heart warming laughter you've ever heard! His whole body will shake as he leans forward cracking up with cute yet intense laughter! Drool will always be present and the laughter will continue for minutes! The threat of a tickle will always up the intensity, whether you get close enough to tickle him or not! Just saying: "Joey, I'm going to tickle you" often does the trick!

From waving to himself in the mirror to 2:30am bathroom breaks; from singing along with each and every song to struggling to get him into the pool; from Combos and cake to needing to go to the bathroom a minute after we finally have reached the archery range, I'm going to miss him. It's been a good 2 weeks, Joey! May you continue to bring unspeakable joy everywhere you go!

The Super Blue Crayon

I was listening to the radio and a speaker said something about Jesus dying to bear the punishment of our sins. So I asked myself if it was true that God has this scale of justice that must be balanced. I thought for a bit and came to the decision that, yes, Jesus died and rose again to right a sort of balance. Here's what I wrote in my journal:

"See, when God gave us free will, the greatest gift ever--the gift of trusting us to keep the world perfect--then we were forced to choose. If a decision is made then out of all the possible choices there must be at least one right option and at least one wrong option. I call the right option(s) obedience and the wrong option(s) disobedience, or sin. There are probably very few choices that are so simple as to only have these two options, but every moment does have at least one option in each of these categories. I thought of it this way: if God offers us a box of crayons and asks us to pick the blue one and not the red one then we can still pick any of the, let's say, 24 crayons, but every time blue and red will be an option. There may even be multiple shades of blue and red, but blue and red will both be there.

"So, if each decision can have a bad choice, if at every moment we can sin, then there must be a penalty for picking that one. Same thing for the good, obedient choices except with rewards. Basically, choosing must matter or there wouldn't be a point to ever making a decision. God won't choose for us, so we have to pick a crayon. Only the blue and red and shades of each must have penalty/rewards, but all must have results.

"God loves his creation and would rather not punish us for picking red, but must have a payment for the red otherwise there would be no reason not to pick red and it would no longer be a wrong option. For a while the payment God chose was a sacrifice of goods--products of the self. But his beloved creation still kept choosing red and he still had to punish them. So he made it easier.

"Jesus came and died and rose again. It was God giving his own sacrifice--a product of his self--as a payment covering all the penalties. This does not mean that picking red is suddenly OK, not deserving a penalty. No, a penalty is still required, but there is an ever-present prepaid blue choice. The payment has been made for all of our red choices, but we still must make that one last choice of blue forgiveness to free ourselves from the penalty. At all times this super blue crayon is beside the box waiting for our hand to grab it. We can pick that option whenever we want as often as we want. And it is only possible because Jesus--God's self--came, lived, taught, died, and rose again defeating the penalty for sin: death."


Yep, that's what I wrote. Tell me what you think and where my thinking is flawed.

One month later

It's been a month.

I stumbled across this tonight and realized it was the perfect thing to toss up on my blog for all to read. I don't know how much it'll mean to anyone else, but it was powerful for me to reread tonight. When I wrote it I was attempting to figure out how I felt. I was aiming for just one concise word, but this is what spilled out:

"January 3, 2008

Alright, this is weird and it won’t make sense, but bear with me: I expect my expectations to be completely wrong. I expect that God will totally destroy my plans and hopes and dreams. And in that way I’ll find that God really is in control. So I won’t stop making plans and dreaming. I won’t stop hoping or making expectations, but I will hand my semester and my life over to God to totally break. Break is the right word. I seek brokenness, uncomfortableness, stress, fear. I desire to be shattered into a million pieces by the thoughts I have forced upon me by all I see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. And when I fall, I fall on God. I fall into the arms of Jesus. I find out how holy God is. I find my place in this world. I lose all of myself. My eyes will be lifted to heaven. Only God and I will know. My prayers will fly! I’ll see all that God does. I’ll make promises. My good days will span months! I’ll follow what I love. I’ll be silent. I’ll cry out to God. I’ll know another world. I’ll know God loves me and remember all that I have to be thankful for. I’ll finally know how much God wants to know me. I’ll never stop singing and I’ll never cease to be amazed. I’ll be crucified with Christ. I’ll fall down, give my all and see that God was there the whole time. I’ll be consumed by holy fire. I’ll fully glimpse God’s mercy and glory as it’s shown to me. I’ll lose my life and find my love. Then I’ll come back. My life will span on. The time of my life won’t be over. And God will know me and I’ll know that he’s never gone. God is everlasting. No one word can sum up how I feel. That all is how I feel. "


Yeah. Thanks for reading.

The end has come

It's a sad day. The end has come and we leave at 6:10am (or something ridiculous like that) tomorrow morning. But it's impossible not to be happy too. I'm going home! It's an end of adventure/start of new adventure type thing and I wouldn't trade it for the world! I bet people are wondering if I'll be different when I come home, or maybe wondering how different I'll be when I come home. Well, I'm wondering the same thing. I know I'll be different, but if it's an easy change then I might not even be able to tell in what ways or how much I've changed. Oh well, that'll worry about itself.

A lot has happened since I posted last. I've been to the Vatican multiple times and seen the Sistine Chapel and been in Sunday Mass at St. Peter's Basilica. I went to St. Paul's Basilica and Santa Maria Maggoire and San Giovanni and San Pietro in Vincoli and tons of other churchs. I've stayed in 2 hotels and almost stayed in another and will stay in one more. I've wandered a bit in a maze of catacombs and gone to a mausoleum. I've mastered the metro system and many of the streets. I was a photographer for an "Angels and Demons" adventure. I watched as AS Roma blew a lead against Livorno. I saw the Roman Legion amass around me at the Circus Maximus. I walked in the footsteps of Paul down the oldest Roman road, the Appian Way. I've eaten at plenty of great Italiano restaurants and had my fill (almost) of gelato. I've seen the Colloseum at night lit up with a full moon floating nearby. I've done worksheets and taken my final exam. Yeah, I've pretty well done Rome.

I could write tons about all of those things but home is so close and I feel like I'll be telling these stories over and over very soon. For those of you that want me to type up some more descriptions I will for anything you ask. I'll just wait until the internet is free back in the USA.

I guess then I don't have all that much left to say. Well, except for random things. Like, if anyone comes to Rome they have to go to Giovanni Fassi's gelato restaurant. Or, don't put too big a bill into the automatic metro ticket machines. Or, don't cheer for the away team at a soccer match or in any way be unbiased. "Time Takes its Toll on Us" has been stuck in my head for a few days. I'm going to teach Briscola to whoever wants to learn. My journal is not quite full, but will be soon. And chapel is going to be pretty sweet on Wednesday.

Now I'm done, but just because the trip is over that doesn't mean I'll stop posting. My posts may not be filled with thrilling adventures like they have been, but I still hope to put up some stuff from time to time. Now I say goodbye to Rome and goodbye to this ridiculously amazing semester. I say thanks to God for seeing my through it all and for doing what has been done in my life. And I prepare to say hello to those at home who have been waiting all this time.

When in Rome

I know that is an incredibly cliché phrase, but it actually works pretty well here. Suddenly nothing needs solid logic anymore. We don't need as much planning or preparation. We can be spontaneous and make random decisions. All you need to do is throw on "when in Rome" and suddenly everything is ok.

So yeah, I'm in Rome. Our last day in Athens was spent doing whatever we wanted. Turns out all 30 of us wanted to do the exact same thing! We all went to Agina, an island south of Athens, by ferry. It was gorgeous! Pretty much all of Greece is gorgeous, but this island was stunning! We hung out on the beach and walked the streets. Some people rented scooters and cruised around the island. No one died, luckily. That evening we had dinner at this little place in the Plaka and as we left started talking to this random group of English speakers. And what do you know! They were Mennonite! It was a group of Canadian Mennonites from Ontario. We enjoyed talking with them and sharing our travels for a while. Small world. Small, small world.

The next day, the 13th, we hopped on a bus to go to Corinth. I was pretty impressed at how well maintained the ancient city was. We read Acts 18 (I think that's the right one) and could see where it all would have happened. Then after luch we had a short worship service in the theater there. It wasn't much, but it was nice closure to Greece.

From there we rode on the bus for a little way to catch our floating city to Bari, Italy. It was a "SuperFast Ferry." I'm not quite sure what to say about this leg of the journey. The whole trip took 14 hours and was spent in luxory. The boat had a casino and arcade and disco and could room 1500 people! Our group had a private lounge to meet in for another meeting about Paul and for chapel planning. (Everyone had better go to chapel on the 23rd at 10:00!) The one piece of sad news is that the trusted Rook deck has called it quits. It has seen hundreds of games this semester, but without a 1 and 13 and only extremely obvious 2s, 3s, and 4s to replace them, the deck had to be retired.

At Bari we were met by Virginia Mennonite Missions workers. They gave us a short presentation and packed us lunches and sent us on our way. After 6 hours we arrived in Rome and the Mariono Hotel. Today has consisted of the Roman Forum, Constantine's Arch, the Circus Maximus, the Collesium, Olympic Stadium, the Spanish Stairs, and some sweet fountain. The food has been incredible! I'm glad to spend 8 days here so that I can try as much Italian food as possible! Tomorrow will bring many more sites!

Life is great and I am out of time unless I want to pay another euro, which I don't.