I am having trouble sleeping tonight, rather, this morning. I would be on facebook killing my time (facebook is a ruthless time-killer), but alas, I cannot. I banned myself from facebook as of yesterday afternoon, until I finish both papers for my online literature course. I got one paper done, and the other one is in progress. I was going to just think about the paper until I fell asleep, but since I could not fall asleep I got out my computer and wrote the introduction paragraph. After unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep again, I decided to read some William Wordsworth poetry to help me feel drowsy. I had a hard time understanding what his poems were about when I read them the first time, but at this late hour I found myself understanding and appreciating the poetry like I have never appreciated poetry before! When I still could not fall asleep after reading some Wordsworth, I thought, "Hmm, well, since I can't get on facebook and I don't have the brain power to finish this paper, I guess I'll write some random jibber jabber on my blog. It's been far too long.

And that is my story. I think I will pray a little while, then hopefully drift off to sleep.

Goodnight moon.

A few late-night thoughts on humility and pride

This blog is a reflection and an elaboration of other thoughts after having read Josh's blog.

A question I have is, Why didn't Jesus go minister to the rich? After all, they needed salvation too. I guess after writing out the question, it seems easy to answer :-P They had their ideals and the system was working for them, so they didn't think they needed Jesus; in fact, Jesus' teaching was turning the whole system upside down. He was a threat to their belief system. They were not ready for Jesus' message because they were prideful. I catch myself becoming puffed up in my Bible knowledge instead of being overwhelmed by God's grace. I certainly don't deserve to have a relationship with the Almighty God, but because of his grace I can enjoy that fellowship! I should not be proud of how much I am learning and pat myself on the back; rather, I need to take what I am learning and use it to boast about how good God is. The religious leaders prided themselves on how well they knew the scriptures and how perfectly they put the law into practice. Jesus took the socially low and the outcast who realized they were sinners, and turned them into recipients of His grace -- and they couldn't help but tell others about their experience!

Some thoughts from others:

"I think Christians use Jesus Christ as a shortcut for being right, and in the process they bypass becoming humble or wise." ~ McLelan

"Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind." ~ C.S. Lewis

"The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God." Psalm 51:17

"True humility is knowing you are completely reliant on God." ~ Tom Aldrich

"God creates everything out of nothing -- and everything which God is to use he first reduces to nothing." ~ Soren Kierkegaard

"Shall I, Lord Jesus, dare to speak to you, I who am but dust and ashes?" ~ Thomas a Kempis

The message of Ecclesiastes

I sporadically studied the book of Ecclesiastes this summer, and although I noticed Solomon’s realization of God desiring our pleasure on this earth, I was missing a huge point of the book. I had puzzled over the meaning of the word meaningless or vanity, depending on the translation of the Bible you use. I had thought it to mean worthless and of no significance. This explanation made no sense to me as I applied it to the passages. At the beginning of the first chapter the author writes Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless! To me it seemed to imply that one gets no benefits from life on this earth, and all the things we put our time and effort into don’t amount to anything. I disagreed with this initial interpretation, because I had seen wonderful people work hard at pouring into other people’s lives and make a huge impact on them. That did not seem meaningless to me. When vanity or meaningless is interpreted as affected by the fall it all makes sense.

Solomon had realized through his life that everything was affected by the fall. We humans are stuck in this world where justice is not carried out consistently, lazy fools can succeed in life, and bad things happen to righteous people. Unexplainable tragedies like cancer, war, car accidents, and heart attacks happen. Everyone eventually dies. It is especially tragic when someone who loved many, dies “early.” Many people blame God for “taking them away” or “letting them get sick.” They can’t explain why God does it, because they don’t realize that it’s not His fault! The Devil wants us to blame the unexplainable tragedies in life on God. Terminal illnesses, car accidents, paralyzation -- all these heartbreaking events or conditions exist as a result of the fall. It broke God’s heart when Adam and Eve committed the sin that kicked them out of the garden and tore them from a painless life full of enjoyment and intimate communion with God. He wants us to make the most of the world in which we live, despite the fact that every facet of life is affected by the fall.

There are two main factors that keep us from enjoying life on this sin-affected earth. The first is that we don’t know what is good for us. I see this in my own life, especially in my lack of finances. I feel that if God provided all the necessary finances to get me through school without having to take out any loans, I would be better off. God obviously has other plans and is wanting to teach me a lesson through trials, hard work, and trusting in His provision. The second factor that keeps us from enjoying the earth is that we don’t know the future. I have been struggling with this one a lot lately. I don’t know if God is going to keep me at Cedarville for the remainder of my schooling, of if he is going to move me close to home. The uncertainty of things is overwhelming. I sometimes wish God would just magically tell me the future so I would know how to prepare myself for what is to come and what to look forward to and get excited about. I tend to spend more time worrying about where God might have me next instead of focusing on where he has put me now. I need to find ways that God can use me where I am.

My grandma told me that the best way to find enjoyment on this earth is to pour your life into something greater than yourself. My grandparents are an excellent example of this. They pour their time and energy into other people: getting to know them, helping meet the needs of others, encouraging others during hard times. They have been through their share of hardships in this fallen world, yet they are the happiest people I know. They are happy because they know that they are serving God with their lives. I want to be like them. I want to use every breath God has given me on this crummy, fallen world to invest in the lives of others. The best way for me to find joy in my pain on this earth is to “banish anxiety from [my] heart” (Eccl. 11:10) and live in enjoyment of what God has given me, using my gifts to serve others.

What's the message of Job?

This is a paper I just finished writing for my Old Testament Literature class. I was to reflect on the meaning of the book of Job as it was discussed in class, reflect on an article by Larry Crabb, and discuss why I was choosing to serve God. If you would like to read the article by Crabb, here's the link to it: http://people.cedarville.edu/employee/millerc/otsurvey/paper/crabb.pdf

The study of Job we did in class gave me an entirely new perspective on the book. I had read the book of Job before taking this class, but I hadn’t put much thought into what the point was (in fact, I rarely questioned the meaning of the Bible until I came to Cedarville). The whole book itself never really made sense to me. All I got out of it was, Look how big God is…don’t question his authority! It was enlightening to find that the book answers the question, Why do we serve God? When contemplating why I serve God, I had come up with answers like, I do it because of the eternal rewards, or, Because I will have so much satisfaction in life if I serve God. Sometimes I have thought about how much God loves it when His children serve and obey Him, but I now realize that my reasons for serving God were primarily selfish.

I was intrigued by Crabb’s discussion about his minister friend who wasn’t finding satisfaction in serving Christ, so he turned his back on his family and his ministry to find satisfaction in a flesh-pleasing relationship. Crabb wrote, “But if God becomes the means and our happiness becomes the point, then we are self-obsessed pragmatists, not worshippers. When God is the point and obedience designed to bring him pleasure becomes the focus, then there will eventually be a fullness of joy that makes sin unthinkable and unappealing, thoroughly repulsive.” I have often found myself doing my devotions “because God will bless me.” What I need to be thinking is how learning more about His Word makes me equipped to serve Him better.

His greatness is enough for us to worship and honor and serve God. Job thought that since he was blameless in God’s sight, that he deserved to be blessed by God. No doubt, Job was thankful for his blessings from God, and worked hard to make sure that his children were right with God as well. But when God allowed Job’s possessions to be taken away and his health spent, Job protested with, God, why? I think I would too, if I were in his situation. Job even went so far as to accuse God of wronging him. That means he expected God to continue to give him earthly blessings because he had been blameless in His sight. It is as if he felt that God owed him, and was being unfair by allowing him to be hurt. God owes us nothing!

A relationship with God consists of being thoroughly in awe of who God is and being abundantly grateful for the gift of life He has granted. He didn’t have to create a beautiful world with amazing creatures for us to behold -- but He did. He didn’t have to make us capable of maintaining enjoyable relationships with other humans -- but He did. And He certainly didn’t have to make a glorious plan to save mankind from the consequences of our sins by sending His only Son to take our place -- but He did! He gives me life and breath every day…what better reason is there to serve Him? He let me live when I deserved to die. He allows me to live a life under His grace, and not under the law. I do not deserve anything He gives me. I do not worship Him because I want to live another day, rather I worship Him because I don’t deserve to be living and He gave me the gift of life anyway. He’s just that good.

Instead of asking God to bless me, I should be in continual awe of the fact that God still makes the world run the way it’s supposed to. He holds the universe in place. As a line from one of my favorite songs says,“The slightest glimpse of You brought me down to my knees.” He SPOKE and the stars appeared. He cares about each creature He made, no matter how small. He who is Great listens to even the most petty of my concerns. He who is Holy forgave the adulterous Israelites numerous times when he could have just wiped them off the face of the earth. Getting merely a glimpse of who He is and what He has done (through the Bible and creation) should make me want to serve Him. I need to see God as my only hope for eternal satisfaction. Sure, my selfish desires will not be fulfilled in this life. Being a Christian may even make life harder than it would be without following God. The real wondrousness of serving Christ comes from the eternity spent with Him. To anticipate a greater intimacy and closeness with God (like what we will experience in heaven) is not a selfish reason to follow God, because He wants to get to know me better too!

So, to summarize my rambling thoughts, I want to challenge myself to worship God for who He is, not for what I expect Him to do for me. I do not want to expect blessings from Him on this earth, but instead I want live with the constant realization that I do not deserve to be loved and cared for by such an amazing God. He is so good, and that’s why I serve Him. Like Crabb was saying, when I focus on obeying God merely to please my awesome God, I will eventually not even want to sin, but will be filled with joy over how privileged I am to serve such an awesome God. I want to see each day as a gift from God, and use it to serve God and bring Him pleasure.

Homesickness

I have been feeling extremely, painfully homesick lately. I really miss all the great things that are back at home. I have a wonderful immediate family and an awesome extended family that lives nearby back home. I love being at Cedarville where I am surrounded by awesome friends that genuinely care, but I still long for home.

My friend Tyler Scott mentioned something yesterday, about longing for heaven. This world is a set-up to make us want more than there is. What happens in this world should make us long for heaven. My words cannot do justice the exact phrase Tyler said, but I tried.

So in my homesickness, I see how much I need to be longing for heaven as I live on this world. I must live with purpose where I am now, but continue to be longing for heaven every step of the way. Its great for me to be longing for home and missing my family, because it shows how much I treasure them in my life. But I can't let that get in the way of where I am now. So this state of "missing home" must go down to the bottom of the list of priorities as I set my mind on honoring God by doing well in my studies. (But I'm still counting down until October 14th -- Fall Break!!) As far as my feelings go (missing home hurts), God satisfies. He speaks in the silence in a still, small voice, waiting for me to draw near to him.

"Don't waste it. Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the max every situation you believe to be in the will of God."

~Jim Elliot

Abstract Philosophy

I am puzzled by people who think a meaningful conversation can consist of abstract thoughts that probably will not have any impact in the world. I could never be a philosophy major because of this. I get completely lost when people start talking about abstract things that I don't think relates to anything tangible. I am not a shallow thinker, rather, I quite enjoy deep thinking. In my mind, however, I need to make connections between the deep thoughts and how they apply here and now, or the near future. When the deep thoughts extend beyond these, I get completely lost and start asking myself What are we accomplishing by talking about this? How does this relate to where I am in life? How can this help me later on in life? Is this conversation a waste of time? I think people can sit around and talk about nothing in particular and build their relationship by spending time with each other (not a waste of time). I think "meaningless" conversations can be held with the purpose of amusement (not a waste of time)... which brings me to the thought that perhaps people who talk about abstract philosophical things do it for their own amusement. It's just not for me. I don't enjoy talking about things that do not relate to living life now or in the near future. Is there anything wrong with choosing not to improve my mind in abstract philosophy? This question leads me to a bigger question. What is abstract philosophy good for?

God is so good. When I am completely confused and lost, God shows himself Sovereign amidst it all.

So... good story from the past couple of weeks (this is the short-ish version):

I came back to Cedarville hoping to make it onto a HeartSong touring team (there is a significant salary that comes with the job, and it would help ends meet as far as school expenses go). I was not expecting to get on a team, but I had high hopes because of encouragement my friends and family had sending my way. When I didn't make callbacks for the touring team, I decided to try for a youth ministry touring team, just to see if God had that in mind for me. I didn't really have time to get my hopes up over the youth ministry touring team spot, so it didn't bother me much when I didn't make it onto a team. I began to think of all the things I could do since I didn't have a job on a touring team (it would involve me being on tour all summer). I thought about missions trips I could go on, or even the possibilities of working at a camp next summer. I started to get excited about all the things I could get involved in at Cedarville. Then the parental forces reminded me that it would be a good idea to get a job. I was getting ready to leave for a family camping trip, so setting up a job before leaving didn't sound like the best idea, as I would need to find a substitution right away. So I decided to put that off until after family camping. A couple of days before I left for my trip (two days, to be exact) an Army recruiter came to my nursing class to talk about scholarship opportunities. I thought, hmmm, I have never really put much thought into Army ROTC... why not find out more? Well, it turned out that I needed to decide by that Thursday to sign up for the Military Science class to begin the process of joining the program. I stacked up all the benefits and decided to go for it. I got all my class-adding paperwork in Thursday afternoon before leaving to go home. After an enjoyable weekend with the extended family, I got back to school and resumed classes with a lack of enthusiasm for homework (I had gotten a little behind from being gone all weekend).

Monday morning I went to PT (physical training) and ran and did push-ups and burpees and diamond push-ups and sit-ups until I felt like I was going to throw up. It felt good though... until I started falling asleep in every class the rest of the day.

On Tuesday I didn't have PT in the morning, but had my first Military Science class later in the day. I enjoyed the class, and it didn't seem like it would be too hard.

On Wednesday I woke up at 4:30 to run in to PT with the Army ROTC girls. It was a five mile run in, and I had injured my leg slightly in tennis class the day before. I ran on the leg with pain on every other step, hoping adrenaline would kick in any minute (it didn't). The pain in my knee got worse as the day went on. I ended up limping to every class, hopping up and down stairs, and falling asleep in class from exhaustion. (I had been going to bed early, at the expense of not being prepared for class the next day.) I was frustrated because my leg wasn't feeling great, and other factors were welling up inside of me. I had been feeling homesick ever since I got back from the family camping trip (I got all choked up every time I would talk to my parents on the phone, even when I would leave a message on either of their phones). At lunch on Wednesday, all my emotions exploded. I was eating lunch with a dear friend, and she asked me how things were going. I began to weep as I told her how confused I was, not knowing why I was so emotional. I couldn't stop crying. I didn't know why I was doing Army ROTC because I didn't hardly have time to ask myself why. I kept crying because I didn't know what God wanted for my life, and everything was so uncertain. I couldn't stop crying pretty much the rest of the day (I was able to suck it up for my ROTC field lab). My eyes hurt because I had been crying so much. I talked to my parents and some friends, and later in the evening I had come to the consensus that I would stick with Army ROTC for a few more weeks just to make sure that I gave God time to tell me if it was the right thing to do. I felt that since I had jumped into it so suddenly, I shouldn't jump right out of it just as suddenly.

Thursday I received an email that the 75% refund period for dropping classes was ending on Friday. I prayed about dropping the class right away, and everything I had been talking about with my parents and grandparents started to come together into one unified thought. The Army is not for me. I just knew it. I knew that I could endure the physical challenges and the mental challenges that come with Army ROTC, but I didn't think I could do it emotionally. I am really close to my family (it's hard enough being 6 hours away at Cedarville). I couldn't fathom being far away for four years after school with only 30 vacation days a year. I knew I had to drop the program. I had also been thinking about why I joined the program. I joined the program so that I could have the money to finish at Cedarville debt free. Then I asked myself why I wanted to stay at Cedarville. Well, because I love the ministry opportunities and all the neat events to volunteer for, and I love my friends here. I then realized that I would not be able to keep up with all that if I was juggling 18 credit hours and labs and homework and studying. I am missing out on the things that I love about Cedarville by joining ROTC so that I can stay all four years. I talked to my advisor, and she was very encouraging about the situation. She commended me for trying the program, and got me set up to drop the class. After all the logistics went through of dropping the class and withdrawing from the program, I felt an immense peace. God immediately provided a job interview on campus (that I am still waiting to hear back from), and an opportunity to help lead worship at a nearby church with some friends. Right now I feel like I am exactly where God wants me, and I am open to wherever he will take me next, even if it does mean leaving Cedarville. I don't want my desires to stay at Cedarville to fight against God's beautiful plans for me. So I am going to live like it's my last year here, and be open to whatever God has in store. I want to get involved in ministry, volunteer at various events, and put 100% into my studies. I can't wait to see what God has for me. Now I only need to develop the patience to live out each day without wondering what's next, because I'll never know until God wants me to know.

I know that God is good! HE IS... SOVEREIGN!