WAAG!!

WAAG!!
What An Awesome God!!


That's it. I just needed to restate this essential truth.

Prayer

So once upon a Friday afternoon, I was spurred by a friend to think about prayer. I suppose it was mostly a casual comment, but I took it and ran with it anyway! Turns out I really like doing stuff like this! I pulled out past journals and other stuff and just had fun! I guess that makes me kind of lame if this is my opinion of fun on a Friday afternoon!

So here's most of what I wrote. I realized partially through writing it that I might as well post it on my blog. Whether people read it or not it's who I am and I might as well post it. Enjoy!


Last fall dramatically changed my prayer life. I'm not sure if I should call it a good change or not. For months I refused to pray aloud at all. I just wouldn't do it, unless it was really forced on me and then I'd be bitter at whoever asked me to. But anyway, basically two phrases come to mind: "Language has limitations, prayer doesn't," and "wordless groans."

"Language has limitations, prayer doesn't," is from September 29, 2007. I was sitting up on the hill at EMU crying my heart out because I didn't know what else to do. I wanted to pray; I wanted to work through things logically in my head, but I was totally incapable of finding words to even give my thoughts meaning. I couldn't do it! I couldn't think and I thought I couldn't pray. But I could pray. I could pray by crying. I could "just come to God in prayer, lay myself at his feet, and trust in his goodness." I didn't need words then. When I journalled that night I did have words to at least write something down even if "journalling isn't always enough. Pen and paper isn't always adequate." (I feel like I could quote that entry all day! "I am not in control! Let me say that again: I am not in control!" "My job isn't to be God for the world; it's to show God to the world!" "I have to confess my shortcomings and my limitations. After that God's faithfulness takes over! His bounty and love and grace and mercy and forgiveness begin to pour out! In my weakness is God's strength. That's what I learned.")

Sorry, back to the topic at hand. That phrase traveled with me for a while. Then later in October I was going through Romans and got to 8:26 and specifically the phrase "the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans." At that point is when I stopped praying aloud. I just felt like praying was kind of pointless. What could I tell God or bring to God that He didn't already know? I felt like I was praying to prove my spirituality or win God points or something.

Through it all though, I learned to pray more. One of my favorite verses is 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17 "Rejoice always, pray continually." People tell me praying continually isn't possible, but I say it can be. I don't say that I do, but I say that I've seen enough to believe it is possible. Praying with words at specific times during the day makes prayer formal and routine, but it doesn't have to be that way. For a while I enjoyed having a seemingly endless conversation with God! It wasn't a conversation with words, but with smiles and random thoughts and pleas and groans and other people. It was amazing!

I don't know what all this means, perhaps I'd just say stop trying to pray and just be with God. If you have something to say, then say it. I don't encourage silence, it was just something I had to go through. But if you don't have anything to say then say nothing--think nothing. Be with God. He knows all of our thoughts and prayers anyway. Sure, He likes to hear from us, but perhaps even more He likes to be with us. And longer prayers aren't more effective as if it was some formula, but sometimes longer prayers are needed.



I'm just glad that there is such a thing as a blog to vent my thoughts for those that care enough to read! As always, thanks for reading!

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.